FORGOTTEN SACRED TEXT: Is ACIM the MISSING LINK to CHRIST’S LOST TEACHINGS? with David Hoffmeister

David Hoffmeister 0:00
Healing is just a state of mind of perfect love and connectedness, and what we're trying to do is let go of all the interference patterns, and we're concerned about people's reactions, and yet we feel something intuitively very strongly. We really have to learn to go with our inner guidance, the guidance of the Spirit, and not the past associations of the ego. What Jesus is saying is you have a perception of being unfairly treated, and that has to do with a body, personality identification. That is something that God didn't create, that God is pure Spirit, and God creates in spirit, at times rejoicing in an outcome that I like, and at times, screaming and gnashing my teeth at another outcome that I don't like. God show me the way. And I think everyone who's gone on the spiritual journey knows the component of surrender.

Alex Ferrari 1:10
I'd like to welcome back to the show returning champion. David Hoffmeister, how you doing David?

David Hoffmeister 1:15
Hi there Alex, great to be back here.

Alex Ferrari 1:17
Thank you so much for coming back, my friend. Every single time you come on, we have these wonderful conversations about spirituality, about movies, about the meaning of life. We go down different rabbit holes. And it's just always such, such a pleasure having you on. And today, we're not only going to dive into a little bit of the Course in Miracles and its teachings and hopefully help some people through some stuff today, but we're also going to talk about this amazing film that I saw, and honestly, you were the first, you were the first, one of the first filmmakers and people I reached out to when we launched Next Level Soul TV, and wanted to see if we could host this amazing film on the platform. And I'm so honored and blessed that you have allowed us to have it on our platform, to share with the world. It is an amazing piece of film, and the extra bonus stuff that we have on on the platform, as well as is beautiful and everything that you're doing. So before we jump into all of that, can you talk to tell everybody a little bit about you and your work and what you do in the kind of teachings you are doing now on a daily basis?

David Hoffmeister 2:25
Yeah, well, my work has been just to practice and live the teachings of A Course in Miracles and really in a broader context of Jesus, just live it day by day. It involves a lot of inner work, mind training, watching your thoughts, paying attention, looking at sometimes, your purpose, your motive for something before you you take an action to really pray and then tune in and listen and follow. So it's about for us, just living a very guided, inspired life and extending that joy and happiness. Because I, I feel, ultimately, that's what, what God's will is for us to be happy. And I think over time, we start to realize it's not about chasing after externals. We're trying to achieve things in the world, but it's about a purpose. It's about a presence, a state of mind, being in a place of listening and following the inner guidance. And I a lot of guests that you have on, you know, talk about it in a wide variety of ways. And so it's been important for me. And then the work has gone on for decades, and now it's getting into the prisons we have some of our content that just got approved to be in on a platform in all the prisons in the United States, which is kind of an interesting audience, you might say, a captive audience, but for the work, but, but also who have been dealing with shame and guilt and and very intense emotions, and also feeling trapped in prison by their circumstances, and then we're teaching them. It's kind of like Gandhi taught it's not it's not really the environment that imprisons you. It's your thoughts and your beliefs and your perception. And Gandhi, one time, was asked about his many, many years. He spent about a third of his life in prison, and he had a wonderful time, did most of his writing in prison, and exchanged vegetarian recipes with the prison guards and prison mates. But you know, it's exciting for us to be able to share and extend the ideas which are really of inner freedom, inner joy, inner happiness, regardless of circumstances and with this world that we perceive that is no small order, it's it takes a lot of inner work to come to that kind of Yogananda smile and bliss that we aspire to into the happiness. Jesus is really guiding us too.

Alex Ferrari 5:01
David the one thing I love about you is that you have this kind of inner bliss, this, this, this happiness. You, you, you've you radiate blissful happiness, and it's just so wonderful. And when you, when you come, you came onto the zoom, I said, Oh, David's here.

David Hoffmeister 5:24
That's Thank you. That's what I would pray for.

Alex Ferrari 5:28
Yeah. Now, David, for people who are not aware of what A Course in Miracles is, can you kind of go over what it is and also what the core teachings of the material is?

David Hoffmeister 5:38
Yeah, it's, uh, I actually have a little copy of it here. It's, it's, it's, it's a pretty big book, because it's got a text and a workbook and a manual for teachers and a couple supplements that go with it. But I'd say it's a course of training your mind to think with the source, with the source of of all being, which we call God, or whatever you want to call God, and so it's an alignment of a thought system with that which is all loving, unconditionally Loving, not judgmental, not not critical, not punishing, but all loving, all happy and all joyful and and letting it train the mind to be able to hear that inner guidance and follow, feel it and follow it in all the circumstances that presented to us with the world. So it starts off with a text that's got a framework. It's a very metaphysical framework, but it's teaching that that nothing real can be threatened, and nothing unreal exists, And herein lies the peace of God. That's the introduction, the beginning of the text, and that's pretty strong. It's pretty uncompromising, but it takes a lot of faith, I think, to open up to that experience that the the introduction is pointing to. Then there's a workbook with 365 lessons, one for every less every day of the year. And that's for the practical application. Just like in when we were in science class, you know, we would be reading the textbook, doing our homework, and then we get into the laboratory to test it out, to do our experiments. And in that sense, the workbook is like an experiment. It's, it's, I think, forgiveness, I would say, in an deep inner way, is is required. So that's why it's called a required course. But it's got a universal curriculum, and there are many forms of the universal curriculum, but they all point down to releasing judgment. And so the workbook helps us do that and practice that on a daily basis. And then the Manual for Teachers answers questions about his reincarnation so and and developing trust and and looking at relationships, and this the puzzle and the mystery that they seem to be and and coming to get clear about our purpose with all of our relationships. And then there's a clarification of terms at the end, and a couple supplements on on prayer and psychotherapy that are kind of illuminating, using the terminology of prayer, and, of course, psychotherapy is an interesting field that deals with mental health and healing the mind. So so it's a beautiful curriculum that uses mainly Christian and psychological and educational terminology. So anybody that's familiar with those that's what we grew up with, most of us now,

Alex Ferrari 8:41
David, I'm gonna play devil's advocate here. This sounds like a beautiful book, beautiful material, and it talks about forgiveness, but it's one thing to say and say to forgive someone, but it's another thing to actually be able to do the forgive, be able to do it and be able to actually forgive someone who has created a tremendous amount of trauma or damage to you on a mental or spiritual a physical way. Do you have any tips or techniques on how to make the concept of forgiveness that's spoken about in A Course in Miracles a little bit more tangible for us here today?

David Hoffmeister 9:17
Well, I think at a very primal, basic level, a lot of people have read about Jesus and the apostles and the teachings, and they've been trying to put the teachings into practice like you say, great role model, but putting it into practice in one's own experience has been very challenging and difficult. I would say the core reason is that what we have accepted as forgiveness in this world is that things happen, whether we call them bad things or horrific things or terrible things, and then we have to find a way to release what we feel is being done, wrong, being mistreated, being. Unfairly retreated. And what the course does is the course is saying it's your perception or your interpretation of what you perceive through the five senses that is where the error is occurring. So typical forgiveness is you forgive somebody for what they did wrong to you, what they didn't do that you think they should have done? Maybe you expected something and they didn't fulfill an expectation. There's a grievance there. Or maybe they did something, and you say, I've got a lot of evidence and I've got a lot of agreement that says what you did is terrible. You mistreated me in a terrible way, and then the forgiveness that we've practiced for these 2000 years has been you did it to me, and now I have to find a way to release the anger and the hurt and the intensity that I feel toward you. Jesus is teaching us in the course it's a perceptual problem, so you have to deal with it at the mind level. It's we've tried person to person, amigo to amigo, to handle this thing, and it really is hard. It seems almost impossible. Some people will tell you, Well, there's a few people I've been able to do with, but then there's with my father or my mother or a particular uncle or a particular thing like rape or incest or something, you know, it's too extreme. I can't do it. And so what Jesus is saying is, you have a perception of being unfairly treated, and that has to do with a body personality identification that is something that God didn't create, that God is pure Spirit, and God creates his spirit. We're used to getting apples from apple trees and pears from pear trees, cherries from cherry trees, and what he's teaching us is spirit comes from spirit. So we've been dealing with metaphysically the idea biblically in Genesis and and all the different traditions have their own creation stories and so forth. And what Jesus is teaching us is that creation is purely spiritual, and that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And and with that investment in the flesh as an identity, as an actual who, who am I? Identity? You could say the Alex, the David, the personality self, that is, is a substitution for our true creation. Is the Christ as a Christ idea, a pure idea in the mind of God. Those are so deep metaphysics. I mean, I even have people that come to me and they'll say, wait a minute, Yogananda didn't even teach that and and it's pretty intense, because Yogananda, as we see, we give God His awake movie. We love that movie. But the the metaphysics are basically nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists herein lies the peace of God. So typical forgiveness is trying to forgive what actually seems to have happened and occurred and make it go away through some kind of deep inner healing. The course is saying you forgive your brother, you forgive your sister for what they did not do. Whoa, that is off in another realm. What do you mean they did not do? What does that mean? He's saying in your perception of linear time of bodies, which is a projection of the ego, then you the bodies, will do things that are judged, either right, wrong, good, bad, all ethics, all morality, is based on mostly behavioral. I mean, if you look at the 10 Commandments, most of the 10 Commandments are behavioral. Thou shalt not kill. You know, Thou shalt not steal. Then we get into some Thou shalt not commit adultery and not have a lustful thought for a woman, not your wife. And some of those things, they start to get more into mental things like lust or or Thou shall not covet. You know, COVID is is not so much a behavior that's getting down into the mind and consciousness. So that's pretty radical, because what Jesus is saying is you're having a perceptual hallucination in which you believe is real, and because of that, you have a sense of guilt for believing you're something that you're not on a very large scale, a body versus a pure Christ idea, that's like a vast scale there and then you are interpreting that in the script or in your perception of the world, that things are being done to. To you as a body, and that those bodies have have good behaviors and bad behaviors, and it's the bad behaviors that are the ones that are so difficult to forgive. And he's saying it's a perceptual problem. You're hallucinating. You're seeing something that, in reality, doesn't exist. And in this Mirage, you are having fear come up, a lot of fear, pain, shame, guilt, and it's due to the perceptual problem. So if you follow this, the first step in forgiveness, you ask for pointers. Is like if we were going to a 12 step group. We would say, Hi. My name is Alex. My name is David. We would give the presenting problem and and we would say, everybody would greet us. And I always say, if there was a Course in Miracles 12 step group, the first thing everybody would go around is, Hi my name is so and so. And I have a perceptual problem when we already identify the problem as a relationship problem or a financial problem or a drug problem or a body related problem, we are not acknowledging that we have a case of mental illness going on that is schizophrenia is defined as a split mind that believes in two thought systems, love and fear. You hear we're hearing voices. Oh, we're all hearing lots of voices. We we on planet Earth every day. We're hearing multiple voices. But we also have had a psychotic break from reality, God, heaven, being reality in this world, being a perceptual, fragmented perception and and when we start even I have a friend who studied multiple personality disorder, if you look at like 7.8 billion people on the planet, from a cosmic sense, that could be seen as A multiple personality disorder, where we all have these altars and these personalities that that are not really feeling happy. A lot of the time, they're happy some of the time, and other times it's it's very, very, very intense. So if you look at the metaphysics that Jesus is teaching in the course, it requires, like, a deep devotion of expanding faith and expanding trust just to be able to follow intuitively the guidance like you starting next level soul, or starting this beautiful platform that is just opening up. That's all guidance. But ultimately, Jesus would say it's ultimately guidance to loosen yourself from from a false identity and come back into a direct, revelatory experience of the Creator, which the Mystics and Saints talk about a lot in their writings. And I've had a few of them, and they're very convincing. You know, like light experiences, you have many guests that talk about going directly into, like mystical experiences, light experiences. Those are, I think, little touch tones of coming a little closer to reality and loosening from our faulty perceptions, you know, which are bringing us a lot of heartbreak.

Alex Ferrari 18:18
It's very, it's, it's very Plato's Allegory of the Cave, shadows, walls and things

David Hoffmeister 18:24
We're dealing with Shadow land. Yeah, that's the problem.

Alex Ferrari 18:27
No, no, it's outside the cave, guys, you gotta go into that. That's where the good stuff is.

David Hoffmeister 18:31
Yeah, that's where the light is, and the puppets. We need to get to those thoughts.

Alex Ferrari 18:35
That was very beautifully said David, but I really want to talk about what the Course says about fear, because right now, the world's going through a lot of things, and a lot of people are afraid of things happening that are happening around the world in every walk of life. Does the course have any practical tips on how to transform that fear into love?

David Hoffmeister 18:57
Yeah, I think, I think when we talk about fear and we relate it to the events and occurrences that seem to be happening at this time on planet Earth. Again. What the course does is it's he will say, it seems like you're fearful around the perceptions around the body and everything that the body seems to be going through and experiencing. But he says, Your real fear is fear of redemption. Your fear is a fear of salvation. Your fear is, ultimately, if we break it down, it's a fear of love. And that's one of the most difficult things to grasp. I mean, when I was first going through this, I was praying and asking Jesus a lot of questions. And I say, No, no, no, I'm not afraid of love. No, that's my goal. That's my whole focus. And he says, Yes, that's what you believe. But there's a belief in sacrifice that when you've had amnesia and you forgot heaven and you forgot God and you forgot one. This pure oneness, you took on an identity and a perceptual dream, a hallucination, and you became identified with it. It became the familiar, and the perceptual world became the known, and God became the big unknown. And so that's why there's so many atheists and agnostics and people that doubt actually the existence of God, that's just a symbol of the the the amnesia that's going on. So when we have fear coming up, ultimately we have we attach it to something that's happening, an election that happens, a war that happens, a plague, a disease, a COVID outbreak, whatever we attach it to. Or even more personally, you know, fear for our spouses, our children, those that we're close to our friends and close friends, if they're going through a diagnosis or something, but the fear is is really, really deep, in the sense that it's the fear of the light, it's the fear of awakening, and the projection seems to be onto an external cause, as if something In circumstances and situations is causing fear, when actually it's a fear of letting go. And that's one of Dr Kubler Ross is, you know, five stages. It's we have to come to an acceptance. We have to come to a letting go in order to find the peace. And that's that, I think, is what's happening with the fear as well. We we have to let go of, slowly, the false identity and and come back to the true identity. And of course, we talk a lot about Yogananda. He was a perfect example of that, you know, such a devotion to love and spirit like daily, minute by minute, moment by moment, and you could feel it. You know, the presence was so strong, and so we need examples of that for sure.

Alex Ferrari 22:10
Now, you mentioned a little earlier about guilt and shame. Is there anything in the in the Course of Miracles that helps you release deep guilt and shame, which I know a lot of people around this world are walking around with,

David Hoffmeister 22:23
Yeah, I would say, when I talk about guilt, ontological guilt is the fall from grace, or the belief in the separation from God. And in any tradition, in any religion, there's usually a a story associated with with the fall from grace and and the correction. I would say, Jesus says there is a correction, and it's in your mind and and it's you're destined to find it, but ultimately that that correction is the the one experience that will take away the guilt completely, whereas sometimes, when we speak what's on our mind, we feel less guilt. Or when we talk to somebody and we say, I'm I'm sorry for something, we feel like a lessening, a reduction of the guilt. But when you're using a word like, like elimination or complete elimination, that's what the Course in Miracles calls the atonement. And there was no atonement in heaven because there was no separation, but with the belief and separation from God, there was an immediate, simultaneously given answer or correction. And now it's the matter of accepting the correction. So to me, that's why it's called A Course in Miracles. The Atonement is the first miracle, the last miracle, and all the miracles in between. It's like the the grand correction that Jesus spoke when he said, Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world that was the presence of the Holy Spirit of the Atonement. Speaking, I've overcome the world. I've corrected the error, what we have heard called sin. Jesus interprets his error sin. Sometimes, when we were growing up, it was like a black mark, oh and Oh, my God, it was heavy, it was dark. Jesus is saying that's an error, and that error has been corrected, and you will be given intuitive instructions as your part in accepting that correction, that innocence, that divine innocence, that is your natural inheritance. So as God created you, was a perfect creation of pure innocence and love and joy, and you have to accept a correction. So that's really the practice of a course, is to follow that instruction, that guidance, that internal guidance, do our part, give our contribution. What seems to be our contribution in planet earth, but really it's in the mind, that's where we accept the direction.

Alex Ferrari 25:00
The course talks about recognizing the ego in supporting of spiritual growth, which seems to be counter intuitive. Most of us have been told you have to release the ego. Yogis are like you must become less the man. I'm paraphrasing, but the ego must be left behind. Because, if I may use your words as of the flesh, not of spirit. How can recognizing the ego lead to more spiritual growth?

David Hoffmeister 25:25
Well, I think, I think we can use recognize in the term of expose and see it for what it is. But I would say Jesus would usually reserve the word recognition for the Spirit, because to recognize you must have known before. That's what it means to recognize or recognize you know, come back into that thought system of purity or or recognize. So I would say, I talk a lot about and Jesus says in the course, exposing unconscious belief, exposing thoughts, exposing dark feelings, exposing the shadow, only to release it, not for any other purpose other than to quickly give it over to the light. And so it's almost like a two part thing where you have to allow all the emotions up, allow all the darkness up St John of the Cross called the dark night of the soul. It seems like we have to allow the darkness to arise in our mind, only to give it over. But there is a part where Jesus says the Holy Spirit needs happy learners. So he says that what we just talked about is just an initial phase, and that as you go into happiness, and you see happiness as your purpose and your function, even says to heal is to make happy, that's pretty strong then, then you're like, moving toward the solution in a rapid way, In a very accelerated way. So it's not to reach a state where we're trying to deny what we're feeling, but in the ultimate sense, once we've done a lot of exposing and clearing out, then the happy lessons of forgiveness come quickly when we've kind of emptied out what was made to block the light.

Alex Ferrari 27:20
You mentioned, the dark night of the soul. Do you believe that humanity is currently going through a dark night of the soul because of the spiritual awakening that we're all going through right now?

David Hoffmeister 27:30
Well, I think I mean just looking at human history, the wars and the plagues and and seeming corruption and deception. I do feel this is a phase right now where the darkness is being brought to the light in kind of a rapid way, an accelerated way. And before Helen Schucman started to receive the notes and the dictation from Jesus, she started by hearing, this is A Course in Miracles, please take notes. And she heard that repeatedly before she started to take the notes down, she was told that people were being called from all over as part of an acceleration that was taking place. And this was back in 1965 the celestial speed up is what it was. She was told this is part of the celestial speed up. So that was 1965 and now we're dealing with 2024 so that's that's getting into quite a few decades. And I actually feel that if we start to see it as it's just an acceleration of a coming to a vibrational experience, a much higher vibration in our consciousness than we've ever experienced, then it does start to take it off of what's happening. And the question becomes, how am I reacting to what is happening, and then that's really important, because what I've learned from Jesus is he's saying you're not really reacting to the things that you're perceiving. You're reacting to your interpretation of the things that you're perceiving. We as humans, see there's an external world, and there's events that seem to be scary. They can be climate events or events around countries, politics, in many ways, diseases, so forth. But what Jesus is doing with the course is he's saying the world that you perceive, this linear world of time and space, this cosmos is a projection of your thought system. So whenever you feel like this is a bit much, or like this is getting scary, or this is getting overwhelming, he's saying you're just seeing a pictorial representation. Your consciousness. And if you start with that and you say, oh, then I need some help with because if this is a pictorial representation of what I'm believing and thinking, then I do want peace. I do want another way of looking at the world. I want a holistic way of seeing the world. I want to see the big picture, not be focused on the tiny pieces, and at times rejoicing in an outcome that I like, and at times screaming and gnashing my teeth at another outcome that I don't like. And so that's a context for spiritual healing. So I always tell people, if you want to be consistently joyful and happy, you really need to take on this purpose of forgiveness and not try to hold on to these preferences and personal identities and outcomes, because they generate a lot of expectations. And then when the forum doesn't match the mental expectation, whether it's in a relationship, an election, anything you can think of, then that's where the it gets very difficult. It gets disturbing.

Alex Ferrari 31:18
Now let's jump into this a beautiful film called Take me home. Can you tell everybody a little bit about the back look what the story is behind it, and what you guys were doing in the film?

David Hoffmeister 31:30
Yeah. Well, that film is directed by Francis Zoo, who has passed away. But Francis told me the story she she about six years ago, she was living six years before the movie was made, she was living in Australia, and she was guided to contact a filmmaker like yourself, a filmmaker, a documentary filmmaker, and she found it fascinating. She wasn't a filmmaker, and at one point she received the guidance that in about six years, she would make a film. And she thought, what? Because she had no background in making a film, but she was sold in six years. She wasn't told in an exact time, but she said, when? How will I know it's time. And the voice said, when the film crew shows up, you'll know it's going to begin. So So she, she really didn't know exactly about the six years, but she just came. At one point, she came to our monastery. She started having these feelings about this film. We were praying together, talking about it, and then a woman showed up and said, Oh, I've heard you're making a film. I'm supposed to be the assistant director. And Francis said, Oh, okay, who's the director? And the woman said, You are so shit. Not only was there no training and background for making a film, but on the day or two before the the Mystery School was starting, she was told through this other woman, you're the director. And so this film is an example of following guidance that there was a little bit of a precursor, but she literally was showing up and going to let the Spirit come through her without any basic training in being a director or all the things needed you can only imagine cameras and microphones and everything, how, how, if you went from, it's almost like add water and stir, you know, it's extremely different. But not only the the filming of it, which was quite amazing, because she, like, you have to have release forms. You know, for your interviews, she quickly. There had to be people who had been planning for for a year to come to this intimate experience of healing. Had to sign release forms. Some of them did. Some of them said, Are you kidding? You want me to go through my dark night of the soul and be filmed doing it? No way. So it was very organic. It had to unfold where people, a lot of them, had never met. They were they were strangers to each other, and they came for this deep healing experience at this Course in Miracles monastery in rural Utah, and they had a director who just learned a couple days before the event that she would be the director, and we actually had someone in the film, Soren who who had made films before, and it there's one scene where I think he's just shaking his head, just going amateurs. You can only imagine somebody who has a. Context, being a filmmaker and watching the whole thing, just shaking his head, going amateurs,

Alex Ferrari 35:08
A lot of white cats running around.

David Hoffmeister 35:10
Yeah, that's exactly it like, like they don't know what they're doing also, but Francis had to be very prayerful, very in presence, and very uncompromising, because, you know, as a filmmaker, there's a lot of decisions that go in, and the director has to make a lot of decisions. Otherwise it's just bedlam. It's just would be chaos, trying to make a film without direction. So she had to rely on inner direction. So that's kind of the backdrop. And then, as you know, once you get a bunch of film filmed, and in the can, that's just the beginning part. There's all types of there's a huge post production, there's the sequencing and editing and shaping the film and and then once you get through that, you get into the actual, you know, making of the film, with all of the technical things that have to come in, and then you get into distribution, and possibly even film like book festivals Some, yeah, film festivals around the world. Yeah, film festivals like Tom's Film Festival and this and that. So it was a process that went on for years, but it's quite a transparent experience of opening up and trusting and letting the darkness up and then letting it go. So you'll see it on, you know, you can see it from watching the film on the people's faces. You know, they That's raw. It's very, very raw. And I think it's actually a good use of A Course in Miracles monastery. That's a good backdrop for it.

Alex Ferrari 36:52
So in that, first of all, I'm I'm terrified just thinking about that alone, if walking onto a set without knowing that, oh, it's going to be a director with no knowledge of being a director would be absolutely terrifying, because it is one of the it is a very difficult job. The bigger the project, the bigger it's a very difficult job to kind of put it all together. You're the first film make. You're the first story of a filmmaker that was guided by spirit to direct the film. I've never heard that one before that was amazing.

David Hoffmeister 37:24
I mean, people have, I mean, here you hear athletes in the zone, and you hear different things about a directing a film without, uh, awareness of exactly when the film would happen. And then, you know, it's, you will be told when, when a film crew shows up, you know, oh my gosh, that is sounds like a game show that without a lot of already training and trust and connection with the spirit would would seem impossible to do it all completely impossible.

Alex Ferrari 37:57
Now, one of the things I loved about the film is the no private thoughts challenge. How did that work to help participants with authenticity and trust? And I mean, because we generally have a mask, we generally are polite, and we don't say everything we think, but to have that completely raw is dangerous, and could can bring in a little bit of heat to the situation. So how did that work?

David Hoffmeister 38:30
Yeah, well, it was all done very intentionally, very openly, transparently and consciously. Not too long ago, somebody told me of a prank where they took somebody in Japan. And I don't know if you've saw a documentary, but they, they took him, and they, they put him in a room, and it was a long period of time. It was,

Alex Ferrari 38:52
100 days, 200 days, yeah, under 200 days,

David Hoffmeister 38:55
Yeah. It was very strange to me, for us with A Course in Miracles. You know, we have worked with it. I've worked with it for decades, and I could see the value of authenticity, transparency and not hiding and protecting things under the mask. As far as releasing the false identity and coming to much more of an alignment with pure spirit, I saw I went through it myself, and everyone around me went through it. So I would say the whole staff, all the teachers, most everybody at the monastery, was deeply immersed in that as practice, no private thoughts, no people pleasing. It has metaphysical basis from Jesus in the course, where, in the workbook, he says, You have no private thoughts, and yet that is what all that you're aware of. So he's basically saying our consciousness in the sleeping state is made up of secrets, private thoughts and defense mechanisms that protect. A mask, and you think that mask is who you are, and he's saying you need to come to trust that inner voice, the spirit and that intuition, to drop the mask. So that's kind of the context of what was going on. Now, the people who had applied to come to the Mystery School applied, some of them over a year in advance, with much communication with Lisa and with others. And so there was a process of, there was a lot of healing just going through the year, of preparing to come. And so there was, I'm afraid, people would have a lot of phone calls. So it wasn't like that, that Japanese experiment, or wherever it was, for 100 some days where you don't tell somebody and then you just lock them up. This was there was a lot of care and attention put into that. And a lot of the people that came were practicing A Course in Miracles, so they, even though they were strangers to each other, they've been working the process of inner healing for a long time. That was still an additional thing to say, we're going to film and make a documentary. You know, they're like, You got to be kidding. But in the end, there was a lot of the staff and students, long time students and teachers of the course that had been really working it, that were the ones that ended up in the film. You know, Susanna Jeffrey, Soren, you know, if you go down Netta Bowen all the way through, these are people that have really been practicing this path for a long time. So that gives you a context about the ones who were coming for healing as their purpose, and it also seen the value of transparency and the value of lowering the mask in their spiritual awakening.

Alex Ferrari 41:58
That's beautiful. Now you said something about people pleasing. Can you dive a little bit deeper into that? Because that's something that I know a lot of us struggle with, and it's something that you want to be kind to people, and there's that balance of being kind versus people pleasing. Can you give me a distinction between the two?

David Hoffmeister 42:15
I think the ultimate aim is always to become so intuitive that we just contact the spirit and let the Spirit come through us in everything we think, say and do. And Jesus, of course, was the great example of that. A lot of the things that came through Jesus, it they it seemed very uncompromising. He seemed to be overthrowing traditions and history. He The Pharisees were furious. The Sadducees were upset. The Romans couldn't understand what he was talking about. You know, at all. They were like, almost like, what planet is this? The a Jewish Messiah? You know, they were like, really confounded and dumbfounded. But if we bring it back to day to day experience, there's a lot of times where we're we're reacting and responding based on a should, or an up to based on the past. I should be this way. I should, ought to be this way. I need to respond in this way. So what Jesus is saying? We're so caught up in this sleeping false identity, that we're pleasing the characters and we we put them there, egoically, to keep us asleep, to to find a false agreement. We always talk about society, what the what will that mean to society, or what will that mean to your circle of friends or to your spouse? You know, it's a journey that a lot of Mystics and Saints have had to face, where they go for God, and the more they just get devoted to God, like Jesus was. A lot of people around them sometimes are very upset, but instead of stopping their journey, they they go, keep going and look at Yogananda. He even was guided by his his teacher, his guru, you know, to go, go to the west. He loved teaching in India. He loved India. He loved the where he lived. He loved the children. He loved his life. He He loved his his surroundings. He was very content and happy as a young teacher, and a very good one too. But go to the west, a whole different continent, a whole different society. When he came over, you know, my gosh the the way that the world was back then it was pretty extreme, as,

Alex Ferrari 44:42
Oh yeah. Like, yeah. Like, when he like, when he went in, um, when he came there's like, what land have you sent me to, God, where they eat hot dogs? Who eat dogs here? It's like, yeah,

David Hoffmeister 44:54
I can. It just was so out of the box. But I do feel like that's a good. An example of of how he had to follow pray in a very devotional way, to to be at peace and to extend the peace in this strange, strange land that was very different from rural India where he was at his school of happiness. So the people pleasing is very subtle, because sometimes we want to be kind, but sometimes that kindness is tied into getting approval of certain ones, not upsetting, not rocking the boat. And there can be an intuitive call, which is very deep, that's to let go of the mask, not to reinforce the mask, and to perpetuate the mask. So I think, you know, when we think talk about kindness, we really have to be prayerful about what is the most kind and loving thing for myself and for everyone. Instead of putting it into I don't want to rock the boat with these certain ones, or I'm going to catch a lot of flack from rocking the boat. And we're concerned about people's reactions, and yet we feel something intuitively, very strongly. We really have to learn to go with our inner guidance, the guidance of the Spirit, and not the past associations of the ego.

Alex Ferrari 46:23
Now in the movie, there's the concept of the role of vulnerability is very interesting in regarding to the healing process, because when we're trying, you know, we have a natural tendency to put out layers, to put out protection, shields, layers of protection on us, as Donkey would say in Shrek, onions. Shrek is just like an onion, multiple layers.

David Hoffmeister 46:50
Very good,

Alex Ferrari 46:51
Yes. So so as we are doing that, but in order to heal a lot of those things, you have to let go of those protective layers, those those shields, those onion layers, to get to the core of it. What part does in the film, at least, and in the Course of Miracles, what part does vulnerability play? Because being vulnerable, especially when you're trying to heal, is extremely scary, because your mind has created this beautiful, beautiful protective shell to protect you from pain. So how does letting go of that help in the healing process?

David Hoffmeister 47:31
Yeah, that's that's a huge question, because it's like, again, it's our interpretation. Is where the fear comes up. And a lot of times we ego has said here, here's layers and layers of defenses, the onion to to keep you safe, and it's keeping the ego safe. And because the ego, the belief that Separation from Source, and the belief of making a false identity, is a frightening idea. It's a frightening belief, and therefore the defense mechanisms are all for protecting a false self. But while you believe in that false self, then they all seem to be important and valuable. So we have to have a different interpretation, slowly from spirit, that as we start to recognize who we really are, we will find that we are invulnerable, but as we begin loosening up from these defense mechanisms, the feelings of fear and vulnerability, it's a risky business to give up the familiarity that we're comfortable with certain defense mechanisms and certain structures that we believe protect our personal identity and our body. So in the movie, you can really see this, like this. Movie was based on filming a four week Mystery School, we call them, and what I've been doing before that and after that, I was doing like, four, sometimes six week retreats, which were basically people would come in and they would kind of leave a lot of their identity behind, because maybe they were a CEO company, And now they're on garbage and trash and kitchen. Imagine the ship they they would enter in during that first week, and then they, we would have different teams, and we would all be about looking at the mind and and identifying what was coming up, and starting to be more truthful and open and honest about the feelings, so that just that process right there at the beginning of one of these mystery schools, it's a bit of a of an undoing, just like in 12 step groups when people first come, if they make it in there and they they start doing the steps, there's a lot of vulnerability, because the. They're in a new environment, instead of just drinking or doing drugs or something to try to placate and them their state of mind and their emotions, now they're in a place where they're starting to have to look at a lot of what's going on mentally, and that's frightening. The first step is looking at the thoughts and beliefs, and that's, that's a frightening step.

Alex Ferrari 50:24
Well, you mentioned the kind of dismantling of the ego and the egoic pride specifically. Can you? Can you talk about what part of that? What part does breaking town and dismantling the egoic pride shape the experience that these these people had.

David Hoffmeister 50:42
Yeah, I think that's like a core focus of what we're going for in true forgiveness. But also it's to recognize that the through the ego and through time, they've developed skills and abilities, and that's part of the human being. It's part of the personality, is the skills and the abilities. So it's not like trying to slice away or eradicate or eliminate all the skills and abilities. It's, I would say it's more of a repurposing of the skills and abilities for the undoing of the attachment to those skills and abilities as an identity. So like in the movie, there's a woman also named Frances who is very identified with being an excellent cook, and there's quite a lot of pride in that, like she's the great one in the kitchen and leads retreats in kitchens and so forth. And at one point in the movie, her identity attachment is so strong to that that another woman who basically not knows very little about about kitchens and making food. It's almost like, you know that thing you can't do toast, you know she she's comes in, and she's put in a position of leadership. So or the woman who's, who's believes very strongly in her self concept, the pride of that, there's all kind of dismantling that goes on, and there's some vulnerability and fear that comes up, and then there's a breakthrough where the gratitude is remembered. And what Francis noticed is that when she was going through all the footage, this huge amount of footage that at the very beginning she had, before the filming was even starting, she started to film, but she said, What is the prayer? Why are you here? Why did you come to this mystery school? And she filmed all their prayers? At some point, she went back and she looked at all the prayers that she filmed before it started, and then what happened in the film? And the film was a playing out of them coming to the prayer of their heart in a way that they couldn't know ahead of time, which was absolutely fascinating for her. She was like, oh my god, everyone got their prayers answered because she it took her, you know, months and months of sorting through the footage before that dawned on her. So I think that's where the trust is. You really when you pray for happiness and peace, you don't know the form that it will seem to take, because the defense mechanisms are so clever that they can if you try to do it consciously, sometimes it just shuts, shuts things off, because the ego is quite clever and quite guarded, to say the least.

Alex Ferrari 53:39
Now, now, what was the significance of the title, Take Me Home?

David Hoffmeister 53:44
Well, I think Francis prayed on that. And basically it was this idea of home being heaven, or home being eternal love, eternal oneness. And the take me home is more like the prayer of the heart, like, please find a way to bring me back from what I believe I've lost, from what I believe I've forsaken or I've forgotten. And so I think Take Me Home is like a feeling of like the prayer of the heart, like, Please reveal Yourself to me, Spirit, God, show me the way. And I think everyone who's gone on the spiritual journey knows the component of surrender, of devotional surrender, like show me the way. That's even a workbook lesson in the Course in Miracles. I will step back and let Him lead the way, and that's really like the core part of of healing. I think that healing is just a state of mind of perfect love and connectedness. And what we're trying to do is let go of all the interference patterns and blocks that we have put in between us and. Truth of of us. So I think that was it. And then Netta Bowen had a song called Take me home, and she's devoted course student and and so the theme song and the title of the movie, there it is. It's like a an album. You'd like to put your title, title cut out front good marketing.

Alex Ferrari 55:24
Very much so, very much so, David, it is it. I was so humbled that you guys decided to allow me to host, take me home on Next Level Soul TV and and all of the extra bonus stuff that we put in there. What we have on Next Level Soul TV is kind of like an appetizer for the full course. Can you talk about what you guys have on the website and how we can more support you and the work that you guys are doing with the Course of Miracles and with your organization?

David Hoffmeister 55:54
Yeah, well, the movie is a deep experience in itself of watching it, but we decided obviously, to have it translated to many languages, and then to do almost like focus groups or study groups or interactive groups, where people had emotions coming up during the movie. And like we're doing now, we're exploring some of the topics, the vulnerability and the context of the whole thing, and that seemed to be very, very helpful to do sessions on the movie and let the movie be used as a springboard or as a teaching device. And so that's how the different sessions that are part of the package unfolded. And in that way you get to it's almost like when sometimes, if you can't even formulate a question, and then you're watching a session or a focus group, working through something, and then you go anyway. That's That's my issue. Oh, I need more information. I need more context. I need more tools. I need more resources. That was the purpose behind those extra sections.

Alex Ferrari 57:05
And it sounds very much like the Course of Miracles itself. There's a text, and then there's a workbook, and then you guys the same thing, the movie is the text, and then you created kind of these workbook lessons.

David Hoffmeister 57:14
Yeah, it is. It is a kind of a loosening the mind from this identity association that we've had. Like, sometimes I'll say, well, the body is to Jesus is like a teaching, learning device. It's a device, just like a we have an iPhone. We think of it as as a device that it's communication device. And Jesus sees the body very much like, like the iPhone, it's a communication device. But to the extent we start to invest in it as something much more than the communication device as an identity, as as a as an end, we start to surround it with things, with money and houses and people and things, and build a big story around it, you know, a whole thick story around it, and and we become so focused on it. He's basically saying learning devices such as the body, they don't make mistakes themselves. It's the mind and the interpretations in the mind that makes the mistakes. And if you start to extrapolate that, you see what a huge gain that is towards true forgiveness, because we take things very personally, because we are identified with the body. Oh, when I was five years old, If only I hadn't done this. Or we look at the mistakes that the body made, and we feel like those are like marks against us that they're hard to let go of, or other people what they've said and done to us, and Jesus is trying to get us to that mindset, like you have a very powerful mind you believed in separation, so the ego projected a world, and now you're very identified with your learning device. It's just a learning device. It makes no mistakes. It does things, nothing good or bad. It's just for the mind to learn the lesson of forgiveness. So it's almost like an artist who's got a palette of colors and brush strokes. And it's like, sometimes I'll be in a big gathering with people, and I would say, you know, imagine talking about your phone as if it it had thoughts of its own, it had feelings of its own, as if it needed lots of different protection, protected devices, and then as if it could take on attributes like, Well, I'm sorry I can't meet make the meeting today because my iPhone is sick. You know, it's. What do you mean? It's sick, it's it's running a fever. What you know, it's like? And I'm not, I'm concerned. I think I need to get it some help and some medicine. You know, it would seem ludicrous to talk about a phone as if it was a person, but Jesus is trying to get us to see that there's a world of images, and we've put so much stories and and references and packaged the human being in such a way that it's a thick identity with lots of onion rings on it, lots of rings there. And he's saying it's not what you think it is. You know, it's a device that spirit can use to teach your mind how to forgive and how to live in harmony with the source. So that's it shows how radical. Sometimes people say the course seems to be extremely difficult. And Jesus is saying different, the spiritual journey, as we've all come to see, it's very, very different from what we thought it would be. I'm sure, 20-30, years ago, you and I, we have a conversation. We We would never foresee ourselves having this conversation, because it wasn't even the tiniest thought in our mind, but but the spirit is using everything to help us become a little more clueless, a little more humble, a little more non judgmental and a little more willing to approach the light of our being. And I see that in all your episodes, you know, that's, I see that little, the shiny little boy in there coming through with the sparkly eyes, with all the guests, because every episode The discovery, you're in there for the discovery. You know, that's why you're doing it, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing is it's just for the joy of the discovery. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 1:02:00
I appreciate that very much. David, thank you so much for those kind words. I'm gonna ask you a few questions. Ask all of my guests, what is your definition of living a fulfilled life?

David Hoffmeister 1:02:10
I would say feeling happy, feeling consistently joyful and happy. That, to me, is fulfillment.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:17
If you had a chance to go back in time and speak to little David, what advice would you give?

David Hoffmeister 1:02:21
Don't worry about a thing. Everything is going to work out perfect,

Alex Ferrari 1:02:26
As Bob Marley would say, everything gonna be ayt!

David Hoffmeister 1:02:31
Yeah, that's it.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:34
What? How do you define God or Source?

David Hoffmeister 1:02:37
I think I actually reached a point where i i Just let go of the definitions. I don't even I can't even go there. I think of God as as a presence that's so vast and so expansive that it's undefinable. So I've given up the attempt at that. And that's why whatever people call it, I'm happy with it. They can call it Fred. They can call it Atman. You know, whatever you know, I I quit trying to define God.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:14
Well, then my next question is going to be interesting. What is love?

David Hoffmeister 1:03:17
Love, to me, is, is an experience of an emotion of what is real, what is true is the Beatles said, All You Need Is Love. And there's a beautiful singer called Karen Drucker. She's got a song, there is only love. Carole King, only love is real. Everything else, illusion. So to me, it's a it's an experience and a feeling, a very deep, universal feeling that is what's natural. It's so natural

Alex Ferrari 1:03:52
And what is the ultimate purpose of life?

David Hoffmeister 1:03:55
I think the purpose I see is forgiveness, with relationship, with relation to this world, I practice every day, coming to a humble place of of I don't really know what I'm perceiving, but you have a purpose. There's a reason for everything, and I want to know that, so I in, course, in miracles terms, it's, it's forgiveness or atonement. That's what I feel.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:28
And where can people find out more about you and the amazing work you're doing in this world David?

David Hoffmeister 1:04:31
Well, I do have a website davidhoffmeister.com, and then there are websites. We have one called the-christ.net that that there really is a devotional page to living an inspired life based on teachings of Jesus and and coming to see that God is all love and all good and and letting go of anything that stands in the way. Of that experience.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:01
Yeah. And of course, anybody who wants to watch Take Me Home can go to nextlevelsoul.tv and check that out. And then I definitely suggest everyone explore the deeper down the rabbit hole stuff that David has over at their website as well for the film. Do you have any parting messages for the audience, David?

David Hoffmeister 1:05:19
Just that, be gentle with yourself. Be trusting. Let faith grow and expand in your heart and and don't let the perceptions of the world of the five senses get you down because you want to be stay uplifted and stay inspired. Live an inspired life.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:43
David it has been such a pleasure and honor speaking to you again, my friend. It is. It's always fun going down these, these lovely rabbit holes with you, my friend. So thank you, and thank you for being a part of this movie and being a part of everything that you do in this world to help us awaken. So I appreciate you.

David Hoffmeister 1:05:59
Thank you. Thank you, Alex, thanks for inviting me and wow, it's a it's a joyful journey of discovery that we're on, and I'm so grateful for it.