Talking with Jeffrey Seibert, Spring 2019

Jeffrey Seibert worked closely with Kenneth and Gloria Wapnick at the Foundation for A Course in Miracles for decades. Jeff moved with the Foundation to its new location in Henderson, Nevada, last year and has recently resumed teaching monthly seminars as well as weekly classes there, also available as recordings through the Foundation’s new streaming option found at https://members.facim.org/. In these classes, Jeff continues to present Ken’s mind-healing message of A Course in Miracles forgiveness through the lens of his own forgiveness classrooms.

I know the Foundation has recently provided new material available for streaming including newly available past staff classes offered after Ken’s death, right?

Yes, all of Ken’s audios and videos, as well as the staff classes offered in Temecula starting in 2015 when we began archiving them.

That in itself is a wealth of material for Ken’s students. And then you’ve started teaching seminars beginning with this one offered in February 2019 that we’ll be talking about today entitled “The Only Change that Matters” (https://members.facim.org/product/2019-02-28-seminar-pc/). Could you explain briefly what the title means from the perspective of the Course’s teaching.

Well, we’d all, including staff and students, gone through so much change in the last year in terms of the Foundation. We always think about all those external changes but the only change that really matters is in the mind, the change from listening to the ego as our teacher to listening to Jesus/Holy Spirit as our teacher. That’s the only change that matters but we don’t believe that. We get caught up in external changes we want to make happen or others we want to keep from happening or wish hadn’t happened. We’re just so mindlessly focused on everything that happens in the world. And so it’s just about coming back to the awareness that there are all these changes but do they really mean anything, do they really make a difference in terms of our peace of mind?

Yes. You talked in that seminar about all the changes the Foundation has gone through over the past year and then how losing your dear friend, Chris, was a devastating change for you personally.  I wonder if you could talk about your journey going through those changes. That’s an awful lot of change and includes that really profound personal change. Maybe you could talk about how, over time, that experience helped lead you back to the only change that matters.

I realized only as I began to get closer to the time for the class why that theme had come up when I was considering what to focus on in the first seminar in our new home in Henderson this year. Just having to think about it in the context of teaching a class was an invitation to go deeper into what the Course is really asking us to accept about change. I would say that across my life in general I’ve been really good at dealing with change. It hasn’t had that much of an impact on me in terms of being able to move on and leave situations and locations behind. It’s never been a big deal so I thought, OK, I can deal with change.

Even the things that were happening with the Foundation, at some level, I knew I was OK with those. But for me, personally, Chris’ death ended up being by far the most difficult change that I’m aware of having to deal with in my life. I was actually looking back to the first interview I did with you because I remember that I talked about Chris in that interview and even at that time I had mentioned that he’d had brushes with death that made me realize how deep my feelings were for him, despite all the challenges of our being opposites in so very many ways. So I was very aware that I had a strong connection with him but I think I still wasn’t ready for how deep the sense of loss would go because in my mind change and loss were just not that strongly linked until Chris’ death.

In the first 24 hours after his death it was just like anything related to Jesus and the Course just completely went out the window because I was so focused on the sense that Chris’ body was gone and it felt like a huge loss. I did mention at one point in the seminar last month that as I was driving home from the office at the end of the next day I had the thought that this would be the first time that I was coming back to our apartment with Chris gone. And then I had the thought immediately after that: “You don’t have to see it that way. He’s not really gone.” That was really the first moment that I thought of Jesus.

That sounds like something Jesus would say.

Yeah, definitely. That was helpful to remember before I walked through the door that there really was a choice about how to look at this. That didn’t mean that I didn’t still experience that change as a loss. I don’t want to minimize how painful it still was for me but it seemed like over the next weeks there were just little thoughts that would pop into my mind [from the Course’s perspective] such as “if you choose to see your brother as a body you will experience pain and grief.” And again I knew that wasn’t my thought and it was like–thank you, Jesus.

So it made it clear that there was a choice but I was also aware that I was in a place where I wasn’t ready to make a different choice, at least not for very long. The next thought that came was a little stronger: “if you choose to see your brother as a body you want to experience pain and grief.” And every one of those types of Course thoughts–when they came–I knew were true. But it wasn’t like I just then let go of the pain and grief. I had to be honest that that’s where I was. The sense of loss was still very real and painful for me.

Sometime after that I had a thought that was really hard to hear; that I really needed Chris to have his brushes with death over the years and then to die and seem to be the cause of my pain and grief so that I didn’t have to look at the real cause of the pain and grief in my mind. His death was actually a cover, a smokescreen. And I tried to stay with that thought, too, as best I could,  just to realize I could see it in a different way, too, as helping me get in touch with that incredible sense of loss and pain and grief that had to have been part of that original separation thought. I realized Chris’s death gave me only a glimpse of the real pain and grief I was trying to cover over in my mind.

Of believing we separated from God.

Yes, and His Love, to see not only the choice as a smokescreen but also behind the smokescreen to the much deeper pain and loss, to get in touch with that. But again, that was not enough yet to let it go. But I was getting all these little reminders along the way that I had a choice; that I could change how I was looking at it. I talked some in the seminar about interpretation and it became clear to me that I was wanting to interpret this change as loss and I wasn’t really that open to a different interpretation, that was just where I was and I wasn’t really ready or willing to completely change my mind, or my teacher. I was still attracted to the pain and grief and I was very aware I was wanting to use it to try to maintain a connection with Chris.

And then the move with the Foundation suddenly became very real—we had a buyer for the Temecula building and so we knew that was going to happen. Before that I had two or three months where I was slowly going through my personal things with Chris. We had a lot of stuff. Just about everything in the apartment was something Chris had gotten for himself, for me, or we had gotten together. So everything was a reminder of Chris. I was never that into stuff but Chris was and it was a very painful process going through all his/our things and trying to figure out what to keep and what to pass on; who I would give certain things to. But I was doing it slowly, with many thoughts and feelings coming up, occasionally sweet and even humorous and helpful in addition to the sad and painful ones, and then we suddenly got a time frame for moving the Foundation–leaving Temecula and going to Henderson–and things had to greatly accelerate. So having to speed up was very difficult. It wasn’t easy to begin with and that seemed to make it even harder.

But through all of it I was very aware of the meaning I was giving everything. I could see that it was a very intentional process on my part. I knew there was another way to look at it–another teacher to interpret everything for me–but I just felt like I needed to allow myself as much as I could to just be aware and allow feelings to come up and just acknowledge them, and I did try as best I could to include both Jesus and Chris as I went through this process. But knowing we also had to close down the Foundation and move here, all of that was coming into focus and I had a sense in the middle of all this that it was not the time frame I would have chosen—I did not want to do it. But there was also a sense that it might also be helpful. So I trusted, as difficult as it was; that it would be OK. And in terms of the changes that were happening with the Foundation, those weren’t throwing me into conflict the way closing things down at home was.

The culmination of that challenging time came once everything was out of the apartment on moving day. I looked around the completely empty space, all the rooms, and there was this sense that I had just dismantled everything of the life we had together and there was no indication of what we had shared left in the apartment–the feeling was devastating. And again, the thought came—that’s an interpretation. We had moved many other times and it was no big deal. I could see how much I really wanted to give it that meaning of loss throughout this whole process.

Then there was this whole process in my new apartment in Henderson I hadn’t anticipated of unpacking what I had kept; everything I was unpacking was reminding me of Chris and his absence. There were a lot of tears. And then somewhere along the line a friend said to me that each thing I unpacked was like opening a gift from Chris and suddenly something shifted. Instead of each item being a reminder of the past and his absence, it became a reminder of his presence. I began to look at everything as symbols of his love and support instead of loss. I guess you could say I was finally more open to a different interpretation.

Since then, it’s not that I don’t still have times of sadness or missing him but even when I was back in Temecula there were times when I was crying and feeling such sadness and I could sense Chris saying, “You know, if you keep on crying you just keep pushing me away because you’re saying I’m not here.” So, it didn’t stop me from crying but it made me think twice about it. I began to realize that everything really could be seen differently.

After his death, I also began to realize how central Jesus was in our relationship. That was really the bond. For all the conflicts and challenges there were between us that was really the golden thread running through the whole relationship and I wasn’t really conscious of it. But right after he died and I started reflecting on his life to write his obituary I saw that somehow Jesus was always there in his life and that Jesus’ love was always the connection between us. I wept tears of gratitude when I recognized that.

He was a religious person, wasn’t he?

Yes, Chris was an Orthodox Christian monk/priest. Jesus was always very important to him, even as a very young child growing up in a non-religious family. He said at one point that he would never let any relationship come between him and God. So, sure there was lots of specialness between us there but at another level I’ve begun to see the relationship is really just an opportunity to recognize that Chris is a stand-in for my relationship with Jesus. It begins with specialness but the love is really the love that Jesus offers us when we join together with him in unconscious recognition of our oneness. That’s what’s been becoming clearer for me.

Well, as you’re saying that I’m thinking that even in our special hate relationships, when we’ve changed the purpose of them the way that our mind heals and they do become loving—if we’re really practicing this–is through Jesus.  Because you’re always in a kind of conversation with Jesus as you seem to be dealing with whatever’s coming up between you and the other special-love or special-hate partner. So at some point the need for the symbol of the other person sort of recedes and you just see, as the Course says, “the face of Christ” in them. 

Yes. That’s the love Jesus offers, the reminder of our oneness.

That’s beautiful.

So that helped me recognize that, as you say, whether it’s special love or special hate, Jesus assures us, as Ken was always reminding us, that the Holy Spirit doesn’t want to take away our special relationships—He just wants us to let Him transform them. I think through this experience with Chris I got a sense at a much deeper level of what he really means by that. It’s a way of recognizing the love we all share beyond the specialness symbols. So while there’s an element of specialness even now in feeling supported, feeling a sense of Chris’ presence, feeling his love, I’m also aware that it’s symbolizing something that goes way beyond that, much, much deeper.

So in the November 2017 seminar on loneliness (https://members.facim.org/product/the-illusion-of-loneliness-sc/) I talked about the A-B-C split Ken had talked about (https://facimstore.org/products/separation-and-forgiveness-the-four-splits-and-their-undoing-cd; https://facimstore.org/products/the-four-splits-of-separation-revisited-cd) as a way of thinking of somebody with whom you might have both a very challenging relationship and a lot of deep feelings for, who may seem to be the opposite of you in very many ways. I had suggested that they would be the Course’s equivalent of what the world calls a “soul mate.” The relationship seemed to originate when the guilty mind A split into a B and a C to get rid of its guilt and each is projecting what they don’t want to see in themselves onto the other.  What I came to realize was the love is the oneness that the healed A represents, through the joining of B and C. It’s no longer the guilty A that had needed to split to get rid  of the guilt, but what Ken has called the innocent A’, still split into now both innocent B’ and C’, where the projections of guilt have been withdrawn so in the end there is no longer a need for a separate B and C. And Jesus is a symbol of that innocence, that oneness, that A’. So it makes perfect sense that within this special relationship Jesus would have such a central role because he does symbolize that oneness that we’re all trying to go back to. And of course, ultimately, since we’re all split off parts of the one Son, we’re all “soul mates.” But within the illusion of linearity, it may seem as if there are some fragments from whom we have more recently split, where both the projections and the attraction seem much stronger.

Well, no relationship is purely love or hate, we go back and forth. And it almost sounds in a way like the change in form in your relationship with Chris was a way back to the change of mind about the nature of your love in a way that you never expected. The change in Chris’s bodily form seemed like such a devastating loss and yet you were learning that Chris was still with you, your love together could never die.

Yeah, exactly. I had felt the lesson was about learning to withdraw my projection of guilt that I was placing on Chris when he was there present as a body. It seemed like learning that was all the relationship was really about. I don’t want to minimize that purpose; that golden opportunity for forgiving my projections that was there while he lived, but it seemed like the lesson went so much deeper after he died. And it was beautiful to realize after his death that Jesus had always been there, at some level reminding us both of what we wanted to remember and return to. And I must say that Chris’s death really deepened my desire to recognize us both as minds, and not bodies. For when I see either of us as bodies, the separation is all too real and painful for me – as I had experienced Jesus reminding me the day after Chris’s death. But if we are both minds, I can accept and experience that there really is no separation. I knew early on after Chris’s death that I just wanted to be with him, to be in his presence, and the only way to do that was to remember we are both minds. But it took a while to get there, and the process still continues, whenever the sadness comes up, whenever I change whose interpretation I’m listening to. 

Thanks for sharing that, Jeff. What a great demonstration for us all. I think it’s encouraging to Course students to see how even someone like you and Rosemarie [long-time FACIM teacher Rosemarie LoSasso]–who have been immersed in practicing this in perhaps an even deeper way than most students because of your roles at the Foundation where you clearly were challenged to try and walk the talk all the time–still struggle with change and loss. It’s helpful to hear your process of going back and forth between the ego and Jesus’ interpretation, eventually finding your way back to our right mind. Until all the guilt in the mind is undone through forgiveness, everyone struggles with the ego and I’m inspired by how patient you were with yourself.  You were aware you were choosing the ego, aware you had another choice, but just not ready to choose it yet, even though the truth that the love was still there kept calling to you.

Beautifully put, Susan. Yes, I certainly knew intellectually what was going on and yet I couldn’t pretend emotionally that those feelings weren’t there, they were just so powerful. I just had to accept that that’s where I was in the process. I did trust that it would probably change over time but it wasn’t something I felt like I could make change. I had to kind of just be with it and try to remember that I wasn’t alone. Looking back, I do believe there were lessons I was learning even at the time through accepting and experiencing the feelings of loss and grief, painful as they were, that I would have missed if I had tried to resist the feelings in any way. Like by thinking that, as a good Course student, I should be beyond these feelings, or I should be able to move through them more quickly than I was. And believe me, thoughts like those did come up, but fortunately I usually was able to recognize their source. I now believe that could have led me to push down and deny what was there in my mind needing to be uncovered and released. I am grateful that I was able to remember and hear Jesus fairly early in my process, even if I was resisting much of what he was reminding me of. I wasn’t ready and that had to be okay. I could not go any faster than I was ready to go. But Jesus is patient.

Yes, Jesus is always there with us no matter what and I guess it shifts in our experience when the guilt begins to dissolve. That part isn’t really up to us.

Yeah. And as I said, I had a sense that as much as I didn’t want to go through it—the loss of Chris, followed by the Foundation moving and having to relocate–in a sense it was all very helpful. The change in form seemed to help me recognize that the real content underneath, the love, hadn’t changed.

Speaking on this same theme from that seminar–the only change that really matters—you asked participants to reflect upon their own relationship with change and ponder a few questions as they listened to your presentation. The first one was if you could make one change in your life, what that would be. 

I found myself pushing back right away because it felt like there were so many changes I wanted to make in my life—how to narrow it down to one? 🙂 But then I realized there was a prominent one over the last year that seemed to either cause or exacerbate all the other problems and that is trying to sell our home. We need to downsize financially because of so many other changes we hadn’t anticipated and this frustration with not being able to sell our home and make that happen has been intense. We’ve dropped the price a bunch of times; we’ve painted, put in new carpet, redone bathrooms, and installed new fixtures. I feel victimized about the way it just hasn’t sold. I feel infuriated that I can’t control it and that I’ve had to put my life on hold and attend to readying the house again and again for unpredictable showings. 

I’ve tried to change my mind and teacher again and again and certainly a lot of learning and healing has occurred. I’m not wrong-minded all the time and I’ve had some truly miraculous shifts and periods of peace, even during continuing chaos, and much more awareness of shared over special interests. And almost always—at least intellectually—I’m very aware that my sense of victimization and lack of peace is a choice. I’m getting a lot of mileage out of how hard it’s been, which at least makes me feel less guilty and more innocent. 

Then, too, I have times when I realize that I’m just as terrified of things getting worse–which seem to be delivering the punishment I’ve secretly always believed I had coming—as I am of having things go “right” for me. If the house sells for a price we can live with and we find another house we love to buy right away (because we will have to) and can afford and it all starts working out that brings up the fear that I’ll be punished even worse. 

So I’m realizing that my relationship with change is totally ambivalent. I’ve had so many changes in my life–over the last eight or nine years seemingly nonstop—and now I’ve been in this position for a year where I can’t seem to change the one thing I most need to. I’m feeling damned if I do and damned if I don’t and I’m aware that on some level, I kind of like that. I don’t know if I’m really asking a question or just asking for your comments. It seems like all I do is continue to try to change my mind, change my teacher, about the cause of all these problems that come from not selling our house. I try to stay in touch with Jesus and do the best I can, recognizing that I really don’t need to be making myself as conflicted over this as I am and could see peace instead of this.

In terms of what you’re describing you can see the purpose that you’re giving it, you’ve always got to start there. The thing we’re always coming back to is the meaning that we’re giving something—the interpretation—that’s always the real problem, not the event. And I have to say that it was clear to me during those many months I was describing that the interpretation of all that was happening was where the pain was coming from but I wasn’t ready to let go of it. So I think to whatever extent you can just recognize that it isn’t really the situation, it’s the meaning you’re giving it, that’s where we can get help. It can be given a different meaning and interpretation that’s not ours but that means we have to let go of our need for control.

I remember that you said that the seminar we had done about control a while back really got to you. When we are open to the interpretation of Jesus/Holy Spirit where we can be peaceful it really means we have let go of our need for control. The whole point of our interpretation we think is to try to be in control but really it’s to keep us in conflict. 

I realize that the control comes back to wanting to control God. Wanting to have my own identity, my own world, and a world that I can rule to my liking, that I’m the center of, and why isn’t it working out for me? And then all these thoughts about punishment come up with that, the belief that I must have done something wrong and now the jig is up. Feeling OK, feeling good, having things go your way, requires you to sacrifice and earn it and I must not have given enough.

Yeah. And then as you said if it does happen to go your way, there’s the fear somehow that you’re going to be punished.

Right. I had that come up really strongly for me a couple of weeks ago with something relatively minor that seemed to go my way. I felt good about it and almost immediately I thought, now what’s going to happen to me as payment for what just went right? I think I’m much more consciously aware of this dynamic as a result of really trying to practice the Course. I’m sort of always uncomfortably aware of my thoughts because I’ve devoted so much time to paying attention to my reactions so that I can at least know I’ve chosen the ego and could choose again. 

I did have a shift recently where I was so frustrated with the house not selling that I was just really honest with Jesus that even though I knew it wasn’t really about the form I really wanted the form to change. I didn’t know how to solve this and so I asked him for help with selling the house even though I knew it wasn’t really about that. That was really hard for me to do, I felt like I was being a bad Course student. But on the other hand it was also a way of sort of being vulnerable with him and admitting I can’t do this by myself. In some way it felt comforting to do that. 

What immediately happened is I had the urge to pull out Ken’s CD set Cast No One Out: Making It about Them https://facimstore.org/products/cast-no-one-out-making-it-about-them-cd about going about our days more gently. Rather than always putting my own interests first, putting the focus on how others are doing and feeling. And I kind of felt like that was Jesus’ answer to my asking him for help with selling the house. I started thinking more about the other people involved in this process—including my husband–who I really hadn’t been focused on. I had been so obsessed with how it affected me. 

It even led me to thinking about our house that has been so good to us. Doesn’t our house deserve to have people who love it as much as we have? And our realtor, who has tried really hard for us and the people who will buy our house and the owners of the house we’ll end up buying and their realtor, etc. It doesn’t have to be one or the other the way these real estate transactions always feel. So that was a big shift and I’d love to hear your comments both on asking Jesus for help in form like that and also the idea of thinking about shared interests, making it about them, as Ken said.

Well, I felt that was lovely how you did finally ask Jesus for specific help but help doesn’t always come in the form we’re think we’re looking for. But I think you were approaching being very honest with him about what your thoughts and feelings were. We’ve talked about this in the past and we think that we shouldn’t ask for specific things but then the ego uses that as a way of keeping us from going to Jesus at all when really it’s much better to just go to him and say I would really like your help with this specific problem, like selling my house. I’m not far enough up the ladder to accept that this is not what is really affecting my peace. It still feels to me like it is. This is all I’m ready to accept right now.

Ken used to talk about how if we can only take a thimbleful when Jesus is offering us the entire ocean, then just ask for a thimbleful. It’s better to go to Jesus and have that relationship with him. I think that’s what you’re experiencing. You’re at least acknowledging that you want that relationship with him even if you’re afraid of everything. And yet you got an answer that went beyond the specific that did help you with what really was the problem, which was your focus on self-interest rather than the recognition of shared interests. That was a beautiful answer at the level of content even though you thought you were asking for help at the level of form. Beneath that appeal really was an appeal for help at a deeper level or you wouldn’t have gotten that answer. And as Ken has often said in the context of making it about them, it’s a way of getting off self-centered concerns to a recognition of my brothers’ needs, which then leads us back to the experience of shared interests, so it really becomes about us, about all of us.

Yeah. And it seems like it’s been gentler since then. And it really has been a lot more peaceful in the sense of my affection for our home, for all the people involved, even though we had an offer last week that sounded like it was all a go and would be what we needed and then they got cold feet 15 minutes before deadline to sign the final contract and I felt myself going into real despair. But it didn’t last all that long and even in that situation it seemed like my husband was more right-minded than I’ve ever seen him around something like that and we ended up having a really good experience talking to each other. So as upsetting as it was it also felt very healing and it didn’t feel like one or the other so it continues to help, that awareness of shared interests.

Well with all of these situations like this one with the sale of your home we can use them as the ego’s symbols to continue to punish ourselves or—no matter what’s happening at the level of form—we can use them for the right-minded purpose of joining. And it sounds like that situation with the offer on the house falling through which had seemed like something wonderful and must have felt like a very discouraging loss became a beautiful opportunity for joining with your husband. It sounds like it was very much a reaping of the benefits of your decision to make it about them.

Yeah. Dealing with change is still really hard isn’t it?

Yes. We definitely switch back and forth in who we’re willing to let give the meaning to it!

I had another experience last night with something coming up in my life that was very upsetting over which I had no control even though it was definitely going to affect me. And I could almost hear Jesus saying that I had two choices. I could go to bed and stay up all night worrying and possibly making myself sick as usual even though there was absolutely nothing I could do to change this situation. Or I could experience peace right now, with him, and get some rest. Because the peace is right here, right now. And so I did! It seemed that simple, for once. It had never seemed that simple. It was like when Ken used to say in any moment you have a choice to root yourself more deeply in the dream or to take another step toward awakening. In this case I must have chosen the second option because I was peaceful, I slept OK, and even the physical pain I generally experience, especially at night, seemed to recede. So that was great but it usually doesn’t happen that quickly for me.

Yeah. And you said something I think is so important, that the peace is right there.

It was there. It was very nice.

Yeah, well, little by little as we practice we will experience shifts like that but we don’t want to set ourselves up where we think now it should be like that all the time and get upset with ourselves when it isn’t.

Right. Making too big a deal about it just kind of sets us up for a sense of failure.

Yes. We’re not at the top of the ladder yet so we go back and forth. So the way to be gentle with ourselves is to know that I’m going to forget or I’m going to drop down a rung again until my mind is completely healed. The last thing we need to do is beat ourselves up. Being kind and gentle with ourselves, as Ken always encouraged us, really means remembering that Jesus is always with us.

That might be a good place to stop. Jesus is always with us, no matter what seems to be happening, you can’t get rid of that guy. 🙂 Is there anything else you’d like to add, Jeff? 

I think I’m getting a deeper appreciation, as Ken always said, of where the hope really lies. It’s not in anything in this world. Sometimes through all the changes that we’re going through we hope things are going to get better but the only real hope is in the mind. And maybe that’s becoming—for both of us—a little bit clearer.

Yeah. Even in Las Vegas, the world is never going to bring us what we really want. 🙂 I had been experiencing my situation for such a long time as a giving up of the world. I felt I was just losing, losing through all these changes—eventually there wasn’t going to be anything left. And, of course, that was a symbol of the fearful thought that there wasn’t going to be anything left of me. But it really isn’t the loss we think it is because the peace really is there. That’s still relatively new to me experientially, that I can have a night’s worth of complete peace while the rest of my life seems to be just a series of problems I can’t solve.

Well, like we were talking about earlier, when we’re listening to the ego we’re always interpreting changes in terms of how they affect me. Most of the time it’s loss but then when the house sells, it might feel like a gain.

For a few hours, maybe, before we have to buy another one.

But that’s the problem. That’s not really what’s happening. The hope really is in the mind with another interpretation that doesn’t have anything to do with loss or gain. That’s when we can just see that peace is right here, I can accept it right now. I don’t have to interpret anything about the meaning of these events. Those changes in the world don’t really mean anything.

Right. I keep going down that rabbit hole again and again even though I’ve been there a million times and never found anything.

I’m realizing, too, as we’re talking, that probably one of the things that’s changed for me over the last year is that I’m not interpreting things as much and so there’s peace. I felt like I needed to give all this meaning to all these things and I’m not going to second-guess myself about that because I think a lot of awareness came through just allowing myself to go through that process. But there’s more peace available now in the sense of the love that is there because I don’t need to interpret it.

What a relief.

Yeah, a big relief. The only ego interpretations are gain or loss.

Right. There isn’t anything we do in the world, if we’re doing it with the ego, that doesn’t involve someone winning and someone losing and either side of that seesaw you’re on you lose because you still feel guilty.

Yes. It’s either a sense of triumph or a sense of loss but no matter what, there must be guilt Why wouldn’t we want the peace of Jesus’ interpretation instead?

Thank you so much, Jeff, for taking the time with me. I know you’re continuing to teach seminars every month, as well as weekly classes on Ken’s Journey through the Text of “A Course in Miracles. There’s no live streaming yet, but these seminars will be available as recordings for purchase along with so many other wonderful materials, including the weekly classes, which are available as free podcasts through the Foundation’s new streaming capacity at https://members.facim.org/. 

And there’s other free material available there, too, and, as we said earlier, all of Ken’s published audios and videos, as well as staff-taught classes from 2015 available as videos at a very affordable price. There’s also a donation option on the website if people who have the means would like to support the Foundation’s very generous work in making so much of Ken’s teaching and the Foundation staff’s teaching available for free or at a very nominal cost.

Ken always wanted to make sure that the message was available to anyone who wanted to hear it and we’re trying to remember that in everything we’re doing.

Well thank you again and thank you from all of us to everyone involved. This was such a pleasure, as always, Jeff. 

And thank you, Susan, for the opportunity to share more about my journey with the Course with you. It’s always such a joy talking with you. 

To find the latest offerings from the Foundation for A Course in Miracles including current store sales and discounts on Ken Wapnick’s books, audios, and videos, as well as wonderful new streaming options, go to: https://facim.org/foundation-course-miracles/news/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Center for A Course in Miracles based in Northern California has opened a new branch in Temecula, California:

 

Spring Classes 2019 “Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see. Each flower shines in light, and every bird sings of the joy of Heaven” (T-26.IV.2:1-2). TEMECULA BRANCH: We are pleased to announce we’ve recently added a second branch in Temecula, California. All new developments in relation to our activities in Temecula will be announced in this quarterly email, and found on our website, as they become available. Presently, we only conduct classes at our Alameda, California, location. WEEKLY CLASSES: Our weekly 90-minute study and discussion groups are held Tuesdays at 11am-12:30pm, and Wednesdays at 7-8:30pm. MONTHLY CLASSES: Chapter 11: God Or The Ego Saturday, April 6th, 2-4:30pm Chapter 12: The Holy Spirit’s Curriculum Saturday, May 4th, 2-4:30pm Chapter 13: The Guiltless World Saturday, June 1st, 2-4:30pm QUARTERLY CLASSES: Kenneth Wapnick DVD: The Unconscious Mind Saturday, May 11th, 10am-4:30pm

 

 

You can find out about one-hour or half-hour A Course in Miracles mentoring sessions available by Skype or phone here: https://www.foraysinforgiveness.com/personal-coaching/

 

Here’s a recent audio https://www.12radio.com/archive.cfm?archive=64E9754E-26B9-4187-86448F115D084FA8 of a discussion I had with CABrooks, 12Radio, on ACIM Workbook Lesson 79, “Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.”

 

Here’s a recent video I did with Bruce Rawles on the topic of “sacrifice,” as discussed in A Course in Miracles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxXDvZL7NAA&feature=youtu.be.