The Far Corners retreat in Ellenton, FL

Well, this is the hardest part of the weekend is to come to the finale.

It.

I can't thank you all enough for being here and for sharing and getting to know one another and

making us so happy.

I just don't know how to thank you enough.

There's one thing before I get started that my friend Dick was kind enough to

look up for me that came out in one of the questions and if you recall, one of the questions said.

The minute we put our work on a service plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God.

And

since I hadn't committed that page to memory, I didn't know the context exactly that it was in, because it sounds contradictory. And it's in the chapter on working with others and on how much help we give the new alcoholic. Do we actually give him some money? Do we actually let him into our house? Do we actually

get a job for him? Do we do all these things

out of love for him in order to get him sober? And what's Bill is pointing out is we don't want to do so much for him that he commences to rely on us and never turns his attention to God. So we have to, that's what this was in that sense that we have to see a balance here or he could suddenly become dependent on

you for everything. And at the end, it says

as long as we depend, as long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God, we're going to have a problem. The only condition is that he trusts in God and clean house. So the point of that line was to direct the new person to dependence on God instead of dependence on you as a sponsor. And thank you, Dick.

Then the other thing that

I wanted to do

before I start on the final talk,

it is possible to get a hologram that will enable you to see God,

and I ordered one Bill, I ordered one for you. So come on up. I want you to just take a look at this.

Can we go back to silence?

It'll only take a second. And thank, thanks for being a good sport.

And this is the only place you'll find God. And you just have to look hard enough and you will see this is yours.

Hi. Thanks, Phil.

Deep down in every man, woman and child

is the fundamental idea of God, that it's only there that He can be found. When you draw close, He will disclose Himself. And what do you think we've been doing? But trying to draw close to our true selves by getting rid of

our fault selves, which I think has been the message of the weekend, is how to get rid of everything that is blocking us from our true nature and from God.

And

we actually tried to get rid of time

and get rid of character defects. And so we're down to this

final thing, which is called your own little world.

And the idea for this came from the expression that people use a lot. And and it they generally use it in a derogatory fashion. And you'll hear it in a conversation. Couple of gals are talking about Mary and one of them will say, well you know Mary, she lives in her own little world.

And then the other one laughs and go, yeah, she really does.

Well, so do you.

So does everybody in this room.

And your little world is not my little world. I have no idea what your world is like.

There are 55 different experiences here of this weekend,

55 different. And yet we all sat in the same room. It's like 10 people are the eyewitness to a traffic accident. And the cops come and they haven't got a clue what really happened because this woman said no, it was his fault. And this one says, Oh no, this one was this and that you, you end up. And they all looked at the same thing

and saw many different things. And so as we talked about earlier, what does your world consist of? And

it consists of your perception.

That is, what your world officially is, is your perception. And as Clancy says,

alcoholism is a disease of perception. So as we

label the world that we live in, that's where we live and you're the only one that lives there. And you could be married to someone for 40 years and you don't know their world 100%.

As hard as you can try, you really can't know every little thing that they see. And you can both go to a musical and when you come home, you were moved by the first act and she was moved by the second act and you go gone. How could that happen?

I thought I knew her this well.

And so

if that's true, then there's 6.7 billion little worlds on planet Earth right now,

and they're all in collision

with one another.

And the problem is that no one is at peace with themselves. Because when you create your own little world,

it's filled with loneliness, fear, incomprehensible demoralization, and there's no way to fix it.

And we pray to God to help us straighten out this world

that we live in. And we should be praying for Him to remove the illusion that that world even exists so that we can be in God's world.

And so people say, well, yeah, but there's 6.7 billion different worlds, but certainly there is the world. Does everybody have that feeling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in addition to that, there's the world. And the answer is maybe there is and maybe there isn't, but no one lives there.

You follow what I'm saying. There is no official world and you go. There has to be.

And So

what we're trying to do this weekend is to destroy the world that we built. And the building material for

our world is thinking.

It's all done through thinking

and we started doing it as a young kid and we just kept building on it. And that's why you see, when Steve gave his talk Thursday night down in Tampa, which was absolutely hysterical, he gave us a glimpse of his neurotic little world as a young kid in grammar school. And the and the room was on the floor

laughing,

but at the same time there was all this pain that he couldn't get out of it.

There was number way to get out of that,

and we keep thinking that there's a way of fixing it and the mistake we've been making is we have to destroy it because it isn't real.

I don't know if this line works or not, but I love it. Two guys are at a movie and there's a long scene in the movie of a pond, very peaceful. Several ducts are swimming by and quacking and going off to the side,

and one of them turns to the other. And he says, well, you know what I always say? If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's probably a movie about a duck.

So

if we looked at our world, we could make the same thing. It's probably a movie about a world,

He imagined believing that It's probably a movie about a world. And I'm at this movie and I think it's real and it scares the hell out of me. And you are the set designer, the producer, the writer, the actor. I mean, you're the it's all yours and you ended up believing it.

And that's what our ego does. It creates a fabrication

and then tells us this is real. By the way, see that guy in the back of the room? He doesn't like you. Well, I haven't even met him yet. You don't have to look at his face.

Yeah, he does look like that guy hated me in high school. It's his brother, really. So now I'm in a room. I was comfortable in this room. Now I have a person who hates me in the room and I'm not as comfortable as I was.

And we think it's funny, but we do that all the time. We do that all the time.

We listened to one story on the

economy, and we're trying to imagine

being on welfare,

but we still have a job. Yeah, but I just saw what's going to happen, and I'm trying to get used to welfare. But you're in a big house and you've had some money. I know. But you can see it coming. I can feel it. I can feel it.

It never would have happened if you hadn't seen that little clip and it started this fabrication of a place where you live. And so we see it in, you know, isolated things here and there.

But it's hard to believe that the totality of this charade. I mean, it's just through such a mind boggling thing. And of course, Bill gives us lots of clues. Our old ideas avail is nothing. Our problems meaning our world, we think are of our own making. And then the classic line where he says the idea that we can drink like other people or soon we'll be able to has to be

smashed.

Smashed means smashed so that that is no longer part of us. It's gone. So we took all the thoughts that go around the fact that someday I'll be able to drink and that whole, you know, be lines 21 through 30, Act one, scene 7 in my life is I will be able to drink someday.

And I have that in my sobriety package

and I'm wondering why AAA isn't helping me.

And it's that's why, Because that's still there. And Bill wants us to go get it and smash it so that it's not part of our

world.

So when Bill writes him the 6th step in the 12 and 12 that we've been granted a perfect release from alcohol,

I believe that.

I honestly believe that I haven't thought of taking a drink. And since after I had six months, so that's 43 1/2 years, the thought of taking a drink has never ever, ever entered my mind. Suicide, yes.

Eating 65 pancakes to feel better, yes. Bingeing on hot fudge sundaes, yes. But not drinking,

that's total freedom. It's absolute freedom from alcoholism. It's wonderful. And if it's possible there, then it's possible across the board, which is what we're trying to do with weekends like this, is to expand our horizon and realize that we've only

smashed a third of our world. And it gave us a wonderful sense of comfort.

But the other 2/3 is still there. And if that could be smashed, then you would be fully awakened and you would really see what God sees all around us. Not a bad goal. I think it's the coolest thing in the world. I just think Holy Cow and Saint Francis told us that in the last line is by dying that we awaken to eternal life.

So we get glimpses of our own eternity

in sobriety. Just little glimpses, just little. And then we, as we took The Big Bang of a A and saw that it's still happening, you can sense the eternal nature of things, including you.

And if you could actually experience that eternal nature, what is there to worry about?

What is there to worry about? The ultimate weapon that the ego uses, which is death, would no longer be a threat. Don't forget, you're going to die. No, I'm not. I'm eternal. Shut up.

You see what I'm saying? You couldn't be scared to death. It would be

fruitless to try.

And so that's that was the stage that I was setting

and I had a few

just thoughts that I collected over the

over the years and I'm just going to read them. They really aren't connected, but I'm going to read them anyway.

Ego trickery. I'm at a play and I get so involved with it that I think I end when the play ends.

In other words, it's the end of the world or whatever it is, and I get so swept up in it that I personally

feel that it it's real and it's going to happen to me. That's the type of play that we write for ourselves.

The world is but a reflection of yourself

that ties in with the projector stories that I've done. And we're in the projection booth. And so everything we see out there, we generated in here, put it in the the projector of our mind and put it up there went, wow, it's going to be a bad day.

And we go out there trying to change it. We go up on the screen and try to get people to move and do this when we ought to go in the projection booth, take the freaking slide out and put one in of the ocean and a palm tree. And then look at that. In other words, we think that's real and it isn't.

It would be. We're at a movie in our favorite stars in the movie

and the arch enemy is sneaking up behind him with a hammer and he's sitting in the chair reading and we yell watch out

to the screen thinking it'll help our hero not get hit. That would be getting swept up in with what's being projected.

A perfectly spiritual being falls asleep and dreams. He's very imperfect and believes accordingly.

How does he become spiritually perfect?

By waking up,

we don't go in there and try and analyze and get a psychiatrist that straighten out the problems that appeared in the dream we just have. We just wake up.

Saint Francis calls the end of our own little world dying. It's by dying that we awaken to eternal life. The analogy could also be applied to a dream.

Um, waking up is the death of a dream.

We don't normally call that, we just call it waking up, but it's really the death of that dream. And so if we're going to awaken, it's by dying, we awaken, we're going to end the dream state or the self-centered trance that we're in. But the hard part is to believe that that's what's going on.

I you want me to question every idea that I have.

Yes. You mean they all could be wrong? Yes. Holy, geez. I mean, that's too much. I could be wrong that I was an alcoholic. I'm wrong that this guy's really a nice guy. We pick 345. You remember that? And the first time we admitted we were wrong,

it well, you've heard me say that my sponsor trapped me into a corner where I just had to agree with them. And it hurt like hell because I, I was so entrenched in my position. And I finally said to him, all right, you're right. And he said, no, you're wrong. And I went, well, it's the same thing. Well, say it. And it was wrong. I could barely get the words out. I'm wrong. I'm wrong.

And

as we do the 4th and 5th step inventory, we start seeing, you know, I was actually wrong about that. I was actually wrong about this,

and this is a process of acquiring humility. And the more we admit we're wrong about something, the freer we get of the old ideas and the happier we start to get. And I think I mentioned earlier, a great turning point came when we saw humility as something wonderful rather than something we had to do.

Chuck called it. Uncovered. Discovered discard.

I'm sure every time he found that he was wrong about something, he probably applauded, thanked God and went yay and threw it away. Oh, boy, I'm wrong about that, you know, and throw it away.

Everything we're wrong about is a burden. We're carrying it on our shoulders. It's causing friction. It's causing harmony. It's causing us to see each other as separate people. It's causing us to see threats from this person, see all of that, and oh, gone, gone. So the more we throw away, and the only way to throw them away is to be wrong.

Yep, I'm wrong about that. Yep, I'm wrong about that. Pretty soon

it becomes fun to be wrong. Oh boy, I'm wrong. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Did you ever think you'd go, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I'm wrong? The lighting and being wrong. I'm wrong. Oh God. And then, and it works in spirituality. You have a, you get a breakthrough and you have a, a sense of the world. And then someone comes along and shows you another sense even higher. And you, oh boy, oh boy. There's something better. Not well. You showed me up.

See that would be the old reaction.

Oh you had to say that and make me look bad instead of Oh my God that is exciting. I love that idea and and we can keep moving on. So being wrong is what we got. 2 steps, 2 steps about it right? 4th and 10th when we're wrong promptly admitted we could actually change that to eagerly admit it.

Oh boy, guess what happened to me?

Now you may think that this doesn't become part of our nature, but it really does.

And I ate lunch with guys all the time. We go to noon, meet Yana, and then we go off to a restaurant. These guys joined us and we sit around the table

and I love to compare the conversations now with what they would have been if we were back drinking and not self-centered and not an A, a 'cause I remember all the conversations. You sit down and said, well, what are you up to? Oh man, I'm screwing my secretary. I shot a 73 on the golf course. I'm closing a God damn deal. You wouldn't believe. When I get through with this freaking deal, I'll tell you it's going to be great. And then the next guy has to top that.

Oh, well, you had a 72, I had a 71. I'm in there pumping the weights. I'm up to 451. I'm running, I'm running. I'm signing up for the marathon. The marathon. You really, you're a lazy ass. I run the marathon. I'm doing that. And then this guy comes around here. But I wrote a new play and everybody's going to come later. I ran around. There's the conversation.

We've all been in it. We all know what it looks like. And nowadays I won't sit there. I'll get up from the table and walk away. I'm going to sit and listen to that stuff again. So we go, and that's the AA guy sitting around. Well, how's your week go? Oh God, I really screwed up at work. I was so abrupt with one of my fellow workers. God, it was just, I can't believe I did that and I had to go back and make an amend

and now we're everything is smoothed out and it really is nice to be able to do that.

So I had that one screw up. Oh, you had one screw up? I had two screw ups this week.

We still have to top each other,

but we're tapping each other with our character defect admissions. We're actually being honest. And then we all connect with one another. Yeah, I did that. Yeah, I did that. Well, geez, I wasn't going to talk about this. But now that you talked about that, I had this thing and I was, oh, God. But somehow I called my sponsor and, oh, is it nice to be on the other side of that. Here we all are,

sharing our imperfections.

Boy, is that a Ernest Kurtz has a book, The Spirituality of Imperfection

Were imperfect. And if we can all relate with our imperfections, we're the happiest people in the world.

Whereas before, with our ego in charge, we had to relate. We're perfect, and everybody we talked to is perfect. Everything OK in your life? Yeah. He's thinking of suicide and he's going. Yeah,

doesn't want to admit any weakness. Nothing to do that. So we're free. I just love the conversations. Right, Chris? We sit around. Well, you know what I did. You're not going to believe it.

And we share that. That is pure humility at work. That is the beauty of being wrong. Every time we're wrong, we are smashing our world, our own little world, And the more we smash it,

the more we're going to see God's world.

I think, if I'm not mistaken, that Chuck began his video by

talking to the young people and saying,

you probably wonder why I'm here, but you're gonna have to face something that every human being

tries to figure out and you're probably not going to be able to do it. And they're all wondering, well, what's he going to talk about? God? What's he going to talk about? It was a brilliant lead in to have a spiritual conversation. He said you're going to try and figure out how to live at peace with yourself.

Now think about that.

No matter who you're talking to, they're going,

yeah, I'd like to learn that.

And so everyone is trying to figure that out. And what do they try getting a PhD?

Drugs

become famous. Write a book? I don't know, but somewhere I will eventually end up at peace with myself. And it turns out the humility is the only way. It's the only ticket out

of not being at peace with yourself

because you built a world that doesn't allow peace.

You're at war with yourself. The inner conflict is bigger than anything going on in the world, and we must ask ourselves how can a person who's at war with himself

go make peace somewhere?

This is the spiritual solution. It has to start with the individual. It has to start with one person getting at peace with himself and showing someone else how to do it, and then that person showing someone else how to do it. One person at a time, showing the other person the way to get at peace with oneself.

And someone might say, well, that's going to take forever.

I don't know. I was no one organization. They've been doing that for 70 years and they're all over the world.

There are 140 countries.

AA1 person showing

the one that's he doesn't go find him. Well, he may go into a detox, but most of the time the person shows up, you're there, they want to sponsor. And so God's just going, all right, here's the next person. Here's the next part of the plan for the world to spiritually awaken one person at a time. And we're going, Why do I think it should be done on a mass scale?

You follow what I'm saying.

This is too slow. We gotta go or whatever it is. And all those efforts are wonderful, but

if you're at war with yourself and you're going to go teach people about democracy or peace or anything, you're really saying if you want what I have and they're going, I don't.

Now listen to me.

So in other words, the reason it works so well in AAA is the person there has just conquered the problem they're going to and show the solution to the next person. There's that level field

and the attractiveness of someone who freely admits their imperfections. I'll never forget the first speaker meeting somebody get up there and talked about masturbating or something. I went, Oh my God, he's, he's talking about masturbating in front of all these people. There's

ladies, there's this time it's. I was embarrassed for him.

You follow what I'm saying. Oh, my God. He actually revealed that he's got a secret or something. And I got all of these inside of me. And I didn't think you could just go. OK, well, these are all gone now. I thought you had to suffer with them forever. So seeing someone admit their imperfection was quite a freeing thing. And I'm sure it is for all of you. And you suddenly realize, Why did I hide that?

Why did I hide it?

Pride.

That's simple pride. I don't want anyone to think that I'm not perfect.

That creates a very lonely world, and that's the one we all lived in. Nobody put us there. We built it.

We very carefully constructed

an airtight idea, tight human being tight, and eventually no light could give in.

You keep working on this creation of this world, and the more building material you put up, the more thoughts. Pretty soon it's very dark, it's very lonely. I'm the only one in there and there's no hint of God anywhere because I didn't include him in this world.

And it's just, it just sounds so amazing.

Chuck talks about it when he drew that circle with the dot on the outside. You remember that? And there's me, and here's the universe.

And I experienced that when I read God is everything or He's nothing.

God is everything or is nothing, either is or he isn't. What was your choice to be? And I remember going, well, boy, I like that from this day forward, God is everything. And I remember having a nice feeling. It was God is everything. And I just sat back, really, God's a coffee in this front row. There's God, God, there's God. Look at all God's there, God's there, God's there.

The whole universe is God. No matter where you go in the universe, there's God, there's God in that star, there's God, there's God. And I got all the way through and there was the entire

universe

and me.

And I realized

I couldn't shake the fact that I existed in addition to the entire universe.

I don't know if any of you relate to that.

There's the entire universe, and then there's me. Well,

how could you exist in addition to the whole universe? Doesn't make sense, does it? What if you made-up a story that you exist in addition to the whole universe and believed it?

Well, that's what we did,

made it up and believed it, and that's the place where we're all hanging out.

And the point of all of this is to try and smash it.

Now that's all on that.

And I did humility.

So now I'll do the I have all these little stories that are just part of this thing and the the reason I do them is that I like them.

Oh, I like that story. I'm going to tell that story,

um, which is like being a little kid, which is really what Chuck wants us all to be. It just God's kids. What are you doing? I just like crayons. I just like crayons. And well, that's nice. And all of us can have our little thing and just enjoy it. As long as you're reveling in it, whatever it is, golf or whatever it just that's all he wants us to do is to just revel in it and then share that enthusiasm and excitement with the next person.

So anyway, I have this granddaughter Zoe, and I always make up stories when I go out to California

when she comes to be in the audience. And I think a couple years ago I had one about Everybody's a Hair on God's Head, and she really loved it. She went home, was all excited about it. So when I went out last time, I had to make up another one

at Santa Clarita.

And so I got to give you the background. Her father is a drama director at Redlands Universities, head of the drama department, and his mother teaches poetry. And the daughter, Zoe, 13, takes violin Less than she's dancing. And she's in every play you can get on. And so she's already going to be the actress in the. I mean, she just. And she tests all the characteristics. And who knows? But her life is the theater,

and I thought it was a perfect

ploy to talk about.

And I said to Zoe,

there's something in the theater

that is very important and it's there all the time,

and you're so familiar with it, you forget that it's there. And but it's very important that it's there and it's the exit door.

There's four of them in this room and they all look alike. They have a red light shining through EXIT and there they sit.

But I'll bet as you sat here for the weekend, you rarely said look at that good exit door over there. It was there, but it

was kind of invisible. And when you go to the movies, there's an exit door there. You can see them. You might glance and see them down there and the movie starts and it's as if they turn the lights out. And the exit doors, they aren't part of the experience that you're having.

They're invisible,

but they serve a good purpose

should the movie become too real.

If you were aware of the exit door, you'd be reminded you were in the theater and that this wasn't real.

It is.

It's very important to understand that we all have an exit door

that we came through when we came here

and that door, if we were to stay conscious of it. I call it God. Consciousness

would forever remind us that this is temporary and don't take it too seriously.

And so I told Zoe that someday that the door is going to start blinking and that'll call her attention to it, and it'll be her turn to go over and go through it.

And when she goes, soon as she opens the door

and the light comes in, she'll remember that light because she's been there for eternity. And she'll go, I can't believe I forgot this. I can't believe I actually, Oh my God, yes, Oh yes. And then she'll reach up and touch God hands where she's been holding for billions of years and start walking away. And he's going to say,

did you enjoy the show?

And she'll go what I said, did you enjoy the show? I don't know what you God, I brought you here what, 70 years ago,

turned around and look at the door and she turns around and on the other side of the exit door it says theater entrance.

Remember I brought you here. I said I'm going to drop you off. This is the greatest show. I worked forever to put this show together. You don't remember this. Come on, we'll both go back in there. So he comes back through that exit door and starts taking her around. Do you know how long I worked on this set?

Look at these mountains. They're 23,000 feet high. Let's go outlet me, take you up there and show you how quiet it is. Look at that. Look at those stars. What do you think of this? You don't see anything in Hollywood like this. This is unbelievable. It took her out to the deserts. Look at his miles and miles, just emptiness. And then took her into the jungles and the animals and just took her all over. Now that's just the set.

And he started describing it as theater in the round, the big rounder

said. Let me explain something. Zoe Earth is the greatest show on Earth.

You can't top this show. I got everything. I have a cast of 6.7 billion actors

and actresses. You're supposed to take it all in and don't be put off by seeming disasters or unfairness. But wait a minute, there's a tidal wave. Look at this. It's coming in. It's sweeping 1000 people right through the exit door.

Did you see it that way, or did you see it as a tragedy?

Oh, you believed it was real.

You forgot it was. You were at a theater.

I told you, keep that door in your consciousness and you'll be able to just enjoy the show. And that's what God consciousness is. It is to go. The reality is between me and God. I've been sent here to enjoy the show.

The

Westerners call it being an observer.

It's hard to believe that our only function is to be an observer.

But when you get a ticket to the show, that's your role. You just take it all in. You're not supposed to get up on the stage and try to correct it. You're not supposed to be the director. You're not supposed to manage anybody. You're supposed to watch it and take it all in. You're supposed to experience life.

And so I asked my son later on, he said that she, oh, she loved it because it was all about the play and the the door

and all those things. Now that's an over simplistic way of looking at our own life,

but I find it fun. I find that it takes the edge off of things that can't be explained,

and

I think Jack reminded me of this.

To put it in perspective,

two people

who recently finished the

life experience are back in the spiritual realm, and they're having a conversation.

And one of them said, well, how long were you down there? Well, I was down there 97 years. Whoa, Gee, that's getting close to a record. You really took in a lot down there. What about you?

I was just there for three months. Oh,

what happened? Well, I was in my crib

and I rolled over into a bunch of blankets and they got pushing up against my face and they call it crib death. And the other one said you did that on purpose, didn't you,

because of their desire to get back, of their desire to get home. So from their perspective,

the one who returned the soonest from visiting the show had the best deal, which would be the opposite of what we would think here.

It's just a way of putting things in a different light so that we don't take our own play so seriously.

Then I came up with how do I resolve the problem of my own ego?

Who is this guy? Why do I don't like him? Why do I think he's evil? Why do I want to wring his neck?

And as I thought about it, I came up with a character

that I have decided to name my own ego

and my egos name is Frank Morgan.

Now, if you're old, you might remember that Frank Morrigan is the actor who played the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz,

and the scene I liked the best was when Dorothy pulled the screen away and it was some little guy back there with a microphone going. Watch out for the Alaska Witcher. The West. Watch out for the ball. Watch out. Oops.

He was caught and it turned out he was some businessman that got in the middle of this damn thing and he was happy to go home too.

He just got somehow in the middle of all this.

So I went back and I said, I wonder where my ego got started in this, scaring the crap out of me and deliberately deluding me and tricking me and doing all these things. And the best I can remember was when I was, I don't know,

eight or seven or something like that in Connecticut, New Haven, CT, walking home and went by a little swampy area, just going home.

And there was a log lying there that if you really used your imagination, you could see was an alligator

in Connecticut.

And I said to myself, oops, an

alligator. And my world suddenly got a lot more exciting than it was before. I saw the alligator and I went, did it move? I think it moved and I'm running home. Oh my God, hope that alligator isn't chasing me. And then I I was so good at this recap re looking at the log from my bedroom. I thought I heard it in the closet.

Well, there's an alligator in my closet. Oh my God. Oh my God. So

I was scaring myself to death, but part of me liked it.

And I guess my ego said, well, he likes this. I'm going to really get good at this.

And I think when I finally get to meet my ego, he's going to say, I don't know, I was just screwing around. I thought you were having fun with this. I'm sorry. I didn't know it ruined your entire life.

I didn't think you'd actually believe it.

Oh my God, I'm sorry. And then we can both hug each other and sit quietly watching God's world go by. He's going to be happy and I'm going to be happy. I like that

version of an ego where I can make peace with them and he can say sorry, we can just drop it all and that'll really destroy our own little world. It really will.

The other story about

how powerful our ideas are

when we tell ourselves this is it

is epitomized by the story. And and I know Steve has heard that the three baseball umpires and their arguing who's the best umpire and the first guy says

like every single time I call him as I see him.

And the second one said well I call them as they are.

And the third one said until I call them, they aren't.

So

we

our umpires and we just look around and we call that wrong. This outrageous thanks to them. That shouldn't be this guy. You're out

and that's it. That's the final verdict. This case is over. Case closed. You're an asshole. Case closed

at no appeal.

That's it.

And and that's what we do to ourselves. Bam, case closed.

Gonna hate this guy forever

and we come in here and now we're going to smash it. We're going to smash all the decisions that were made,

just take them all out, destroy the whole system,

and that's pretty free.

So let's see, we're getting near the end. And

so now you have to listen to two poems

and they're awful,

but, but I like them. So you're stuck.

When you organize your own retreat, you can read your own phones.

OK so this is this is my egos game of hide and seek which I've I've been covering already.

Where shall I hide? I said where I will never find me. I'm going to play a game of hide and seek with myself. I know I'll pretend that I'm not me nor you, nor he. I'll hide in a story and pretend that it's real. I'll believe my thoughts and feel my beliefs.

I'll lie trapped in a web of painful feelings, forgetting that I created the web.

Oh my God, I don't know where I am.

Oh my God, I don't know where I am. Ollie, Ollie and free.

Ollie, Ollie and free. Nobody comes.

Oh, I hit too far

and this one is

Who am I?

I am the Yang and I am the Yang and everything in between. I am the up and am the down. I am the in and them the out. I am the hide and them the seek. I am the black and am the white. I am the life and I am the death. But most of all, I am.