Monday, July 31, 2017

Why Non Dual Teachers Always Seem Happy




The following was transcribed from a talk given by David Hoffmeister, one of the great non dual teachers of the modern age.




For me that was the thing of surrendering just to say I'll go wherever you want me to go, I'll do whatever you want me to do, I will step back, you lead the way, you show me. I'm not going to try to freeze down an identity into anything that is static. I want to continually go through an evolution of consciousness where I am so unattached and so open to whatever comes my way, that in the end I reach a state where I see that I cannot judge anything. That I never could judge anything. That I never did know my best interest. This humble state of just pure openness. Open-mindedness.
There is a lot of ideas that get left along the way. Even the idea of positive energy and negative energy. You could start to see that there is so much duality in everything that we have believed in. We have to truly, like one of the greatest non dual teacher, Buddha said, empty the mind of everything that we think we think and we think we know and come into that state of pure emptiness and innocence.
Recently I was listening to the Chinese translator of A Course in Miracles and she said - I mean, in the beginning they didn't get it into mainland China, they got it over to Taiwan and she did a lot of her work in Taiwan. She said first it kind of caught fire as kind of this catchy new age teaching and philosophy and it was starting to become popular that way. And then occasionally some Buddhists would trickle in and start picking up the book and working with it a bit. And she noticed over the years, that the ones that came in from a new age perspective, they were like a flash in the pan. They quickly let it go and it was the Buddhists that were the long term ACIM students. The other ones all faded away and I thought how beautiful. This ancient tradition of non dualism, with so many non dual teacher emphasizing the emptying of the mind, this deep rich spiritual tradition there, they came into it very slowly like, What's this? and then they started working with it and then they hung with it. 
I think that is the way that this kind of alchemy, this transformation goes. We have to have a lot of steadfastness, a lot of persistence, a lot of devotion to truly hang with it and then pop! It seems like we reach a crescendo. We reach a threshold or something and it is just like, Wham! It is just, Boink! Ah ha! Eureka! The simplicity of it just dawns. The glee, the joy, the happiness. That’s why a lot of non dual teachers seem so happy, because they had a lot of devotion and hung in there.

Opening the Heart to Jesus with a Course in Miracles




The following is an excerpt from a talk with David Hoffmeister, A Course in Miracles teacher, on the topic of heart opening to Jesus.



When you have the feeling that you are being touched by the truth, obviously you feel your heart opening up and in A Course in Miracles it is saying you do not need to believe in Jesus to benefit from this. It can be helpful for many people, very helpful inroads and of course there are many devoted Christians that I have met all over the world, lots of them in South America, they were just so passionate and everything but even among them, they have gone through so much intensity in this world, wars, starvation, disease, and death. They have gone through these things like hierarchies that were just set up to follow — these hierarchies to Jesus, like you are walking up a ladder. There is so much corruption and so many things done in the name of Jesus that do not seem very loving at all.

So I find it in Europe in particular a lot of times people say I do not feel any kind of connection, it is a turn-off instead of a turn-on and it is quite common over here. For me, I was raised in Christianity but it was something that took I think it was much later in my life, when I was in university that I started to have this awakening experience with A Course in Miracles and I started to open up and have a connection with Jesus for the first time. It was not the historical Jesus it was with the Jesus in my heart. That is that good feeling when we say we have a relationship with Jesus. Maybe in your experience you are opening up to the truth, it resonates in your heart, that when you bring in the word Jesus or the Holy Spirit it is like an alien has landed or something,  like Oh, hi who are you? Or a kind of thing like that, but the most important thing is your heart opening up. I find that there are so many people who have had Jesus on a pedestal, and even a lot of Christians and Catholics have told me they are quite afraid of Jesus.

It is interesting, the flip side, you are not feeling anything in particular.  They are feeling fear, they can relate to Mary, they can relate to angels, feeling like someone is watching over me. So at least you are more in a neutral position, not in the fear mode, to have to overcome all that. So when you asked that question I just had Jesus inside me. You know the song Jesus is just alright with me, Jesus is just alright oh yeah?  That's how playful Jesus is with me, He has a little Jesus song going in there, feel like rocking and grooving in there, He is so playful, friendly, so funny, so humorous and for many they have to peel away a lot of conditioning around Jesus being something else.

To learn more about the teachings of A Course in Miracles and David Hoffmeister, please visit his website at www.davidhoffmeister.com

Nondual Teachers and Sickness


The following is an excerpt from a transcribed talk for nondual teachers by David Hoffmeister.



One time I had symptoms where I started feeling this nauseousness and this sick kind of feeling when I was doing all my mind training. As a one of the nondual teachers, I was watching my thoughts, and the thoughts were oh it feels like I am getting sick, feels like I am catching the flu, oh my Dad just had the flu, oh so did my Grandmother, I probably caught the flu from them.  I was just watching all my thoughts and then I put a plate of food in the microwave to heat it up, put it in there and it was heating and then I started thinking oh no, the nauseous feeling started coming and I was thinking oh no, now I am not going to get to eat the plate of food, just watching my thoughts with everything. I at least had taught myself to watch my mind by that point, just watch the thoughts, like watching all the thoughts. Then the diarrhea feeling hit really hard, with the flu symptoms and then the nauseousness and then the diarrhea and I went running down the hallway to run to the toilet and everything and I got in, put my pants down, still watching my thoughts and as I sat there I went what is my lesson, what is my Course lesson for the day?  It was lesson 136. Sickness is a defense against the truth.  Interesting timing for that lesson.  No coincidences here. So then you know how Jesus says in the Course, he says let related thoughts come to your mind from the lesson.  



So I am sitting on the toilet with my nauseous feeling and my diarrhea feeling and everything. Now I have got my lesson for the day. Yay, I am good, a helpful thought.  I missed all the flu thoughts, and catching germs and the feelings.  And here comes, here we go, Jesus on the white horse to the rescue and here he comes. So I thought okay, sickness is a defense against the truth, now this is what we are talking about, be practical. So then I started to let related thoughts come and one of them was sickness is a decision. I thought well that is interesting. Kind of counteracts catching the flu bug. Sickness is a decision of mind.  And then I let another thought start to trickle in and another one is coming in and it is like you choose sickness, you choose sickness, you choose the symptom when you are afraid of love.  Just what we have been talking about today.  Ah ha. See how right minded that is when Christ comes to the rescue, it is always there for us nondual teachers, we just have to let the thoughts in.  And then you are afraid of love and therefore you think that this will help mitigate, you think that you can kind of punish yourself instead of being punished by God. What kind of a crazy view of God, you see how twisted it is; it is as if God would punish anyone. But we have believed it you know, look at our religions, drill it in. So ah ha, I am choosing a small self, I am choosing the flu, I am choosing nausea, I am choosing diarrhea instead of the condemnation and judgment of God. Ahhh so I think I have chosen smaller, safer. Oh that is a sneaky trick that would not escape nondual teachers.


To learn more about the teachings, nondual teachers, and David Hoffmeister, please visit his website at http://www.nondualteacher.info


Non dual Teachers Wisdom on Alignment with Purpose




Enjoy the following excerpt from a transcribed talk given by one of the clearest non dual teachers David Hoffmeister, who speaks about alignment with purpose.

Yes, I feel that that is exactly what we are coming to.  Many non dual teachers agree that it is an awareness that through detachment, through non-judgment, or obviously being aligned with our divine purpose, that that is the highest helpfulness that you could have.  You are literally being fully a part of a re-translation of the whole perception of the world.  And is that helpful?  It is the most helpful. 

The other attempts that you were describing were very noble attempts, very altruistic attempts.  And underneath the altruistic attempts was a desire to make a contribution, to provide some helpfulness.  And the prayer at the beginning of the Course...says I am here only to be truly helpful.  I am here to represent Him who sent me.  That truly helpful, putting those two words together… we could say that as you rise up in consciousness and you start to clear away the dualistic thinking and you get much more in line with this beautiful purpose that is forgiveness, I will call it… that the more in line you are with forgiveness, that you become truly helpful. 

And sometimes people will say, “Well, does that just mean that you sit there in the lotus position and the world goes on and you are just sitting there meditating?”  No actually what I have found is that as I have come into alignment with this purpose, the body of David still seems quite active, talking, going around to thirty-one countries, going to third world countries where I do get the chance to interact with children and families and all walks of life.  I will occasionally meet people who are involved in politics or science or you name it.  It is like a huge broad swath of those that I come into contact with, some celebrities.

 It is just a huge, wide range and there is always that helpfulness component.  To give you an example, going down to Argentina and going out with my friend to go to many gatherings like this, taking along a little sack of coins, and she brought a little sack of little angels to go along, because while I was down there the economy had collapsed.  People were going through starvation and children, were coming up to do juggling acts, wanting to wash the windshield of the car, anything to bring home something to support their mothers and their families and everything.  So the Spirit had us get a sack of coins, and my friend brought along these little angels. We would stop at the red light and they would do their little performance, and we would have these wonderful Holy encounters, one after the next, with these children.  And their eyes would light up and sparkle.  It was very active.  We were not just off and sitting and meditating.  We were right there, just letting the love, you might say, just infuse us.  The body is like a marionette that is completely neutral, as many non dual teachers agree.  It has no causative effect, but that marionette can be moved, you might say, or I call it being done through.

To learn more about non dual teacher David Hoffmeister, please visit https://nondualityonline.com/

Thursday, July 27, 2017

A Course in Miracles (ACIM), Forgiveness and Looking beneath the Fear of Dying


A Course in Miracles (ACIM), Forgiveness and Looking beneath the Fear of Dying

Enjoy this excerpt from a talk from the awakened mind of David Hoffmeister, where he discusses the path of ACIM and going beneath the fear of dying.

David: Forgiveness is wholeness. If you even leave God out of it for a moment and we go to the correction that takes you back to God. Forgiveness is wholeness and so if you are identified we will say, as a man, as an ACIM student, as an awakening mind or a soul that is undergoing an evolution, a transformation, if you are identified with any of those things, ACIM says, forgiveness is the goal. But forgiveness is wholeness and what we are starting to realise is the reason the mind seems to have these symptoms or even seems to be terrified of the body dying is not really the fear. It is the fear of wholeness.

That symptom that seems to be in the body, as you were saying with the throat closing up and everything like that, and not being able to sleep. That is all a projection of the fear of wholeness so that you will not see that you are afraid of wholeness. When people talk about the Holy Spirit, it says in ACIM basically, that the whole purpose of the workbook is to train the mind to hear the voice for God, to hear the Higher Power, to hear the intuition and really that is the whole purpose of any spirituality. It is to hear that intuitive voice because that has got all the answers.

That voice knows who you truly are and it always is letting us know ... it is never critical once, ever. It is never demanding, it never commands, it never forces us to do anything. It simply offers us this healing reminder about being so loved and even gives us instructions. Where to go, what to do, how to spend the day. It is even practical, it is even more practical than all you need is love.

It gives us practical instructions that help us out in this awakening. But if we are afraid of the Holy Spirit and we are afraid of forgiveness, even if ACIM is telling us that this is the goal then we have to start to realize, wow if I would choose the symptom, and it is a choice, it is not like something out there did it to me. If I would choose a symptom wow I must really be afraid of something else if I am trying to trick myself with a symptom.

Friend: It is a good sign, you are getting close.
David: Yeah it is actually a good sign.
To learn more about David Hoffmeister and ACIM, visit www.acim.biz

A Course in Miracles and Faith


A Course in Miracles and Faith

To go deeper into the topic of faith, enjoy this transcript from a talk given by A Course in Miracles expert David Hoffmeister.


A Course in Miracles has a beautiful line that goes, "Love cannot be far behind a grateful heart and a thankful mind." That just kind of rolls out. It is the love that we are all seeking to know that ACIM tells us it is literally beyond what can be taught but we can work at removing the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence. So that is really where our focus is. And then as you clear the mirror of your mind from the attack thoughts and judgments and grievances, then the gratitude is there. It is not like something you need to have more of. It is just like it is already there ready to radiate and shine as you. Who you are is just a grateful presence, a grateful living presence. But it is just covered over by these judgments and grievances and attack thoughts.



A Course in Miracles actually talks quite a bit about removing those grievances and judgments in our mind and how important it is that we do so. So we will talk about that and we will also talk about the trust that it takes to do that because as long as you are trusting in the ego, then you are reinforcing, or we might say perpetuating judgments and grievances. But when you withdraw your faith from the ego and you give it over to the Holy Spirit, then naturally those grievances and judgments start to fade away and they become less and less in your awareness.



So faith is not a question of more or less faith; it is what am I putting my faith in? We are going to be all about exposing the ego and really pulling our faith away from the ego and putting it into the Holy Spirit. And that would have to transfer to all aspects of our mind including things like - sometimes people think of things like finances or relationships, there are various aspects of the human condition that seems to be, Oh well, I could turn to God for certain things, but there are certain things I can run a little bit better than God so I'll run them on my own. We find that does not really work. You cannot really run some aspects of your life. That control of trying to be in charge of certain things is where the problem is. So it progressively takes a lot of faith to transfer the training we have learned from A Course in Miracles.