Alex Ferrari 0:00
Who were you really before this awakening that you had, what was breaking inside of you that caused you to find this awakening?

Gary Renard 0:09
I don't know what I want to do, but even though I love playing the guitar, I'm not going to do that for the rest of my life. I'm going to do something that is somehow connected with spirituality. What they wanted to explain to me was the modern metaphysical masterpiece called A Course in Miracles. And they decided to clarify it for me. What he meant was that he had awakened from the dream, that he realized that the dream was coming from him, and great masters realized that the world is not being done to them. It's actually being done by them.

Alex Ferrari 0:45
What would you tell somebody who has lost faith, not only in God, but in this experience itself, in this dream.

Gary Renard 0:56
Is that we want to go for the real deal. You know, we want to go home to the real thing and the real thing...

Alex Ferrari 1:07
Now, before we get started, I want to thank you so much for clicking on this video and getting ready to watch this amazing conversation we're about to have. But one thing I've noticed is that about 40% of you who are watching are not subscribed. It is the easiest way to continue to support the work we're doing at next level soul, and it has been the joy of my life to have these amazing conversations with some of the most remarkable and profound souls on the planet. So from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you so much for giving me the ability and the privilege of doing this work for you. So please just hit the subscribe button, hit the like button, and it really, really helps us out a lot. Thank you so much. And let's dive in.

Alex Ferrari 2:01
I like to welcome to the show Gary Renard how you doing Gary?

Gary Renard 2:04
Oh, very good. Alex, it's great to see you.

Alex Ferrari 2:06
Yeah. Thank you so much for being here, my friend.

Gary Renard 2:09
Great to be a part of your podcast. You're in Austin. Is that right?

Alex Ferrari 2:13
That is correct. I'm in Austin, Texas.

Gary Renard 2:15
Okay, let's say a very quick story.

Alex Ferrari 2:17
Sure.

Gary Renard 2:18
When my first book came out 2003 the disappearance of the universe. You know, nobody knew who I was. I couldn't get the book in any bookstores. I finally got the book in one bookstore in Maine, where I lived, and I was so excited to see one book in one bookstore. And I had a friend in Austin, and he said the motto here is, Keep Austin weird.

Alex Ferrari 2:44
Weird. Yep,

Gary Renard 2:45
Yes. And he said, there's a bookstore here called Book people. And, yeah, write to him, tell him about your book. So I did. I wrote to him. I said, Look, you got to sell this book. It's really weird, right? And they saw that, and they did. They started selling the disappearance of the universe, and that was my breakthrough in bookstores, because I could say, hey, look, book, people are selling it, you know, what's the matter with you? You know, then other people started selling it in bookstores and and there were a lot more bookstores in those days than today, so that was a good thing for me, but I've always remembered that about Austin, and since then, I've been there quite a few times and spoken there quite a few times. But I was just starting out, and it was a thrill for me to get my book in there.

Alex Ferrari 3:34
Oh yeah. Well, when people come to the airport, when I have guests fly in, they they like did is it is, did I see that correctly? There's T shirts in the airport that say, Keep Austin weird? Yeah, yes, yeah. It's very it's a lovely weird town. This were all the artists and the weirdos and the hippies were all the energy pulled them all into this area, which is unlike the rest of Texas, but completely it's kind of like Miami is a little bit different than the rest of Florida.

Gary Renard 4:10
That's right, so true. But I love it, it's great.

Alex Ferrari 4:12
So Gary, you've been, obviously, you're an author, you've spoken a lot, you've done a lot of events, done a lot of teaching over the years, but before all of that, who were you really, before this awakening that you had, what was breaking inside of you that caused you to find this awakening, to not find it, but this thing happened to you?

Gary Renard 4:36
That's great question. I've always been some kind of an artist, like I was a musician up until I was around 40. So really, I spent the first half of my life being a guitar player and a singer, and I actually did pretty well at it. You know, for someone who wasn't a star, I made a good. Living playing the guitar, and especially the last 10 years in the Boston area, New England, New York, a little bit. But when I was about, oh, I would say 36 or so, there was this thing called the harmonic conversions. And I didn't know it at the time, a lot of people made important decisions about their lives. At that time, there was just this confluence of planets and something about it, I remember drawing a circle in the ground visiting Maine, and I stood in the circle during the harmonic inversions, and I said, I don't know what I want to do, but even though I love playing the guitar, I'm not going to do that for the rest of my life. I'm going to do something that is somehow connected with spirituality, because I become pretty spiritual. I've been on a spiritual path for about 15 years, but it was then that I started to decide, you know, this is all I'm going to do. I'm not going to do anything else. So I moved from the Boston area up to Maine, which was kind of like a culture shock, even though they're kind of close together. You have the city life, and I was a city boy, and where I lived in Maine, well, there were more deer than people there and I didn't like it after first couple of years, I said, you know, I don't like it here. The people here don't like me, you know, I'm the city boy. I don't know how to fix a ride on lawn mower, you know? So I'm no good to them. And I said, That's it. I'm gonna go back to Boston and start playing my guitar again, because I knew I could do that, so I took my old Les Paul Custom out of the closet, started practicing, started playing it and singing, and I'm playing, and all of a sudden I felt another hand. I couldn't see it, but this hand started to push down on the neck of the guitar started pushed down, pushing down toward the floor, and me along with it, pushing the guitar down, and, you know, going down to the floor. Now I'm the kind of a guy. I look for signs. That was a sign, and what it was saying was, no, no, you've been there, done that. That's not what you're supposed to do. So I realized I wasn't supposed to do that. So I'm thinking, Okay, if you're telling me, you know talking to spirit, if you're telling me I'm not supposed to do that, then what am I supposed to do? And about two months later, I got my answer. I was alone in my living room. I was sitting there meditating, and I opened my eyes, and there were two people sitting there on my living room couch, these two amazing looking people. I thought they were people. They certainly looked real. They certainly looked like people. I found out later that they were actually the Holy Spirit appearing as people, which we can get into later. But they were sitting there, and they started to talk to me, and I freaked out a little bit. So I figured, you know, have I been meditating too much? Did I accidentally eat some mushrooms for something

Alex Ferrari 8:20
I was about to ask. I was about to ask him, like, have those had that LSD from the 60s? Finally, 70s hit you?

Gary Renard 8:28
Well, fortunately, I didn't do LSD, or else, I really but they, they started to speak, and what they said was very interesting. And this is chronicled in my first book, The disparity universe, which I've been very lucky with. That's the book I was telling you about. The first one today. It's in 25 languages, and it's all over the world, and I get to speak about it in my other books. I have four of them with the fifth one coming out later in the year. And you know, my whole story is in there, and their names are art and HRSA. And it eventually turned out that they revealed so many things, including the fact that 2000 years ago, at the time of Jesus, they were disciples of Jesus, and they knew him well, and they wanted to explain something to me so that I would pass it along. And what they wanted to explain to me was the modern metaphysical masterpiece called A Course in Miracles. And they decided to clarify it for me, because it's it's out there. There are millions of copies out there, but most people, including his teachers, don't really know what it's mean, what it means, and don't really stick to the message of the course and what they did. And this happened over a period of like nine years. They would appear to me every few months, they would teach me things, and they wouldn't come back until. They decided that I was applying the teachings that they were giving me. They wanted me to actually be doing them in my life before they would come back and give me more. So over 17 visits in that nine years, they basically taught me A Course in Miracles, the details of it, and by the end, you can really put it all together and see what the Course means, which is not easy, but somehow they did it. I assure you that I could not have done that on my own. I would have just done the same thing that everybody else does. I would have taken the culture on course miracles and adapted them to what I already believe. And you know that's very tempting to do that, because the course is not easy. It's difficult, and it is not like anything else. It is different than anything else, which escapes most people, but you can't really compare it to anything else. Now, it's certainly not putting down anything else, but there's a feature about it that I think is very important, and that feature is to save you time. It says that the miracle, and of course, in miracles, when it talks about the miracle, it's not talking about partying the Red Sea or or things like that. It's talking about a certain kind of forgiveness, and that's the miracle in A Course in Miracles. And what this forgiveness does is it saves you time. And the course actually says pretty early on that the miracle can substitute for learning that may have taken 1000s of years. And it doesn't say that lightly. It is talking about saving you countless lifetimes in your overall spiritual development by cutting out all the peripheral stuff and getting right to the chase. And the chase is that none of this is real. None of this is true. The idea that the world is an illusion is certainly not new, but they go all the way with it. This is a purely non dualistic teaching. So what it's saying is that only God is real, only God is true. And I'm not a religious type. I don't want people to think that, you know, I'm a holy roller, and I, you know, always got God for God, and writhing on the floor and things like that. I'm actually pretty practical in my thinking, and I like the idea of saving a lot of time. You know, that's pretty practical. But I didn't know about what it was saying at first. I would say that the Holy Spirit has earned my trust over the years. I didn't believe everything at first, and I don't think that most people do, because this is really radical and really far out, but what it's saying is that nothing in the universe of time and space is real, that it's all illusion. And of course, the quantum physicists have been saying that for 100 years, but very few people actually take that to heart. And the course does, and so it says, right in his brilliant introduction, he says, Nothing real can be threatened. Well, that's what we really are. What we really are is a perfect, divine creation of God, which would be exactly the same as God, and that will always be our reality. Nothing can ever change it. But there was this idea of separation that crept into the mind, and the part of the mind that holds that is something that the Course calls the ego. So the ego is the idea of separation, and the idea that we've somehow separated ourselves from our Creator and taken on this individuality, this idea of identity that is somehow separate from our Creator. And the easiest way to describe that is that it is manifested in the body. So we believe that our bodies are real, that what we're seeing with our bodies is real, and that everything that we see is real. And the course is saying, Well, no, actually, none of it is real, and you made it up, and what you are seeing is a projection that is actually coming from the one ego that thinks that it's here. So we look out there, we see eight and a half billion people, but there aren't eight and a half billion people. There's only one of us. The Hindus had that right. Still do. They said there's the one appearing as many. So you have this one ego that thinks that it's here, that thinks that it has separated itself from its creator, and there's only one of us, this one ego. And guess what? You're it. It is not somebody else. There isn't anybody else. There is only you at the level of the unconscious. Now at the level of your conscious, yeah, this feels very real, and it looks very real, but that's an illusion. Even a physicist will tell you that that this is an illusion and that is made up of illusions. They won't say that it's not real. I think that's a little too extreme. If they say that it's not real, I think they lose their funding. You know, but if they they can say that it's an illusion and get away with that. But of course, miracles is not compromising on any of this, and neither am I, neither on my books, which isn't always popular with everybody. But hey, you know, I was kind of like sucked into this in a good way. You know, my teachers spelled it out for me in such a way that once I put the book out, I couldn't say anything different, because if I did, people would come up to me and say, Gary, yeah. What the hell you talking about? You know, your book says this, or your book says that. So I was kind of set up in a good way to stick to this message. And the message is that separation is an illusion, that there's no such thing, and that ultimately what you want to do is undo this idea of separation. So of course, miracles, which I'll just refer to as the course, it says that separation is not true, and that salvation is undoing. So what we're doing is we're undoing the ego. We're undoing this idea of separation, and that we have somehow separated ourselves from our source, from God, and as you undo it, what you do is you become more aware of the fact that you are one with God. You are kind of like returning to oneness. You're returning home. You're going home to God as you undo the ego. So, you know, the course starts off by saying, as I mentioned, nothing real can be threatened. That's what we really are. Nothing unreal exists, which would be anything else, including anything in the universe of time and space, and it says, Herein lies the peace of God, because it's asking us to make a choice between what we really are, which is the same as God, or what we think we are, which is based on separation. So the course goes to great length links to teach us that we are not a body. You know, one of the most important teachings in the course is, I am not a body. I'm free. but I am still as God created me.

Gary Renard 17:45
But if you are still as God created you, then you are the same as God, because God doesn't do different. God doesn't do separation. God does spirit. But the course thinks of spirit a little bit differently than most people, it says that spirit is not a partial thing. It is not a partial attribute. So when the Course talks about spirit, it's not talking about, oh, I have a soul, and this thing goes on after I die. No, the course is saying that real spirit is not part of it. Real spirit is all of it exactly the same as God. And what we want to do is undo the idea of separation. And the course is actually a happy form of spirituality, if you don't know, and some people know this, some people don't, but the voice of the Course of Miracles is Jesus, and what he's doing is he is kind of like saying, Well, you know, people say I I was teaching this, and this is actually what I was teaching. So his message hasn't changed any but it's given in such a way that we could not possibly have understood 2000 years ago. It's still a message of love and forgiveness, and that's never changed, and never will change, but our ability to understand it is now on a much deeper level than it used to be. And with the quantum physicists, and with Freud and young and and the introduction of Eastern philosophy into the West, it's really become more possible for us to grasp the things that are being said in A Course in Miracles, and it could take hundreds of years for this to really be accepted as the word of Jesus, yet at the same time, I believe that it will be. By the way, when I do my workshops, what I like to do is, every now and then I like to tell a joke, because there's a lot of heavy duty teachings in A Course in Miracles, and so I like to break it up because, as I'm saying, it is a happy form of spirituality. So it's my first joke. This monastery is in the basement of the monastery, and he's looking around. Through all these old scrolls and finding all of these old sayings and looking for anything that comes up, and all of a sudden he finds something. And he gets all excited. He goes running upstairs to the other monks, and he says to the monks, look, look, I found something. Look, it wasn't supposed to be celibate. It was supposed to be celebrate, you know. So, you know, that's, you know, one of my spiritual jokes. But it's like A Course in Miracles talks about a happy dream, and that is brought about by the course's brand of forgiveness. So it's not enough to know that the world is an illusion. You know that plus 10 bucks will get you a cup of coffee. You know, it's it's not enough. It's not enough to go around saying, Oh, the world is an illusion. The world's illusion. What you got to do is you got to replace it with something. You got to replace it with the truth. And that's why the course is so big on this certain kind of forgiveness, but it's based on certain precepts, and one of those precepts I've already mentioned, that we are not bodies, and that this is not us, and what we really are is perfect, a divine creation of God. Now the fastest way to get to that experience to undo the false you the ego, which is based on the idea of separation, is through the kind of forgiveness that doesn't make it real. You know, if there's a mantra that I could give to people, it would be, don't make it real. If you make it real, that keeps it real in your mind, and the idea is to release it. And it's kind of complicated to explain why that's true, so I'll give you the really quick version, and that is that if you could drill down deep enough into the mind, you know, really get down deep into the mind, then you would find that there's only one mind, that there's only one of us, which goes back to what I was saying earlier, that one ego appearing as many So Carl Jung was right. He called it the collective unconscious. Once you get down to the unconscious, there's really just one mind, because there's really just one of us, and your unconscious mind knows everything. You would have to know everything, because that is where this projection of a universe of time and space is coming from in the first place there's this projection. The projector is hidden, you know, like in a theater, you don't see the projector, you just see the projection that's in front of you. You don't see where it's coming from, but it's actually coming from you, or more accurately, the bigger you, the ego and so your unconscious mind, knowing everything, knows that there's really only one of us. Even though it's projecting eight and a half billion people and millions of objects and trillions of things to choose between, it knows there's really just one of us. Now, that's good news and it's bad news. The bad news is most people go around for their lifetimes really judging, making it real, even if it's subtle, you know, like, even if they don't say it. You know, a politician comes on the TV screen some politicians that I don't like, and I'm tempted to say, Ah, well, if I do that without realizing it, I just call it myself, because my unconscious mind, knowing that there's just one of us will interpret anything that I think or say about another person to really be about me. And once you understand that, I would think you would get pretty damn careful about the way you think about other people, and what you think and say about other people, because anything that you put out there in the form of thought or words is really just going to you. It doesn't look that way, but it's really just going to you. And of course, miracles articulates a very important psychological idea in its saying, as you see him, you will see yourself. And it must be pretty important, because it says, never forget this, you know, and that person, you either find yourself or lose yourself. So if you're going around making it real, judging people, even if you're, you know, nice, if you're thinking judgmental thoughts about them, then it's really just going to you, and that will keep you stuck here forever, because judgment is based on separation, because judgment makes it real, and so it makes separation real and keeps separation fixed in place in your mind. And what we want to do is we want to undo the idea of separation, and this kind of forgiveness does. Doesn't make it real. So the way it works, pretty simply, is that something happens you don't like and by the way, you don't have to forgive the good stuff. You can still have a good time. You can still have your life. You don't have to give up anything. Of course, miracles is not about sacrifice, even though religion gave us a suffering, sacrificial Jesus, you don't see that in the Course of Miracles, this is the happy Jesus, and He gives us a happy form of spirituality. He talks about the happy dream, you know, changing the miserable dream into a happy dream no matter what happens in the world, because now you're very subtly and slowly but definitely changing your reality, from the world being your reality to spirit being your reality. So this happens gradually. It has to, it's kind of like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. It doesn't happen overnight. You have to get used to a different life form. You know, it's much different being a a butterfly than a caterpillar, just like it's much different being spirit than it is being a body. And it takes some getting used to and if you did it all at once and were suddenly hurled into reality, you wouldn't be used to it, and it wouldn't be fun. So you get used to it gradually as you go along over the years, maybe your body will feel lighter. Maybe it'll become more like the figure in a dream that it really is. Because, of course, miracles, even though other people use the word illusion, the course, yeah, it uses the word illusion, but it takes that word and very nicely reshapes it into the idea that this illusion is a dream that we will awaken from. And it's that awakening that is enlightenment, awakening from the dream. So when Buddha said, I am awake, you know, he didn't mean that he felt amazing, amazingly alert and ready to manifest like hell.

Gary Renard 27:10
What he meant was that he had awakened from the dream, that he realized that the dream was coming from him, and great masters realized that the world is not being done to them. It's actually being done by them. It's coming from them, and that puts you in a position of power. If the world is being done to you, you're a victim. But if the world is being done by you, now, you are no longer a victim, and anything that appears to happen in it is being done by you. You may not be consciously aware of that always, but the time will come when you will be, because as you undo the ego in the mind, what you're doing is the way the course describes it is you're undoing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. And you know, the course has its own language that you you pick up over the years. It's kind of like learning a second language. So when the course starts off by saying, this course is not aim to teach the meaning of love, because that is beyond what can be taught, it does aim at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. Well, when it talks about your natural inheritance, it's talking about nothing less than the kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven was given to you by God as a gift. You don't have to earn it. You know, you don't have to suffer and sacrifice to earn it. If you give me a Christmas present, I don't have to earn it. You know it's mine. You know you gave it to me? Well, heaven is yours, and God gave it to you. But what you do have to do is awaken to it, because it's here right now. You know the truth is not gone anywhere. It's here right now. It reminds me of something that Jesus said 2000 years ago. It's not in the Bible, but you can see it in the Gospel of Thomas.

Gary Renard 29:17
The disciples went up to Jesus and they said, When will the kingdom come? When will the kingdom come? And he said, well, it will not come. By watching for it. It will not be said, behold here or behold there. Rather, the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it. And the reason that people don't see it is because it's out of their awareness. You know, it's not that is not here. You know, the truth hasn't gone anywhere. Heaven is here right now, but it's out of people's awareness. And what the course does is it undoes the blocks to that awareness of the kingdom. Of the kingdom of heaven that is here now. So what happens over time is your experience will start to shift. It'll start to shift from this heavy body that you need to carry around to maybe being more like the figure in a tree. I've been doing this over 30 years. My body feels lighter. You know, I don't feel any older than I did 30 years ago. I'm going to be 75 in a few weeks, and I don't feel any older than I did when I started doing this. And what happens is you identify less and less with the body, and more and more with spirit, and that idea that I am not a body is very central to the course. Because you're you're kind of like refuting that identity and taking on your real identity, which is spirit. You're undoing the idea of separation in your mind with this kind of forgiveness. And it changes everything. But in order to do it, you have to stop yourself from judging. Of course, as the ego cannot survive without judgment. You know, so there's a workbook in A Course in Miracles, and what the workbook does is a slowly but surely trains your mind to think with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego. That's the choice that we're being given, is to start to think with the Holy Spirit. The Course calls that right minded thinking. And one of the cool things about the course is that you can do it. It's always done at the level of the mind, and you don't have to tell anybody you know. You don't go up to somebody and say, hey, you know, I'm forgiving you now, you know, that'll really piss them off, you know, because they they're right, you know. What do you mean? You're forgiving me. You're the one who needs to be forgiven, you know. So this can be done silently, you know, this is done at the level of the mind. So that politician comes on the TV screen. There was a time when I couldn't stand them, and maybe I'm tempted to react and to make it real and to curse out or anything. And because of the mind training, and of course, in miracles, I stopped myself. I don't react. I don't make it real. I don't judge. Judgment makes it real. And instead, I can do forgiveness. And the next step, if you can stop yourself, which may be the hardest part, the second part would be to forgive and to choose the right thought system. You know, to choose the thought system of the Holy Spirit, instead of the ego. And the workbook of the course makes it much easier to do that trains your mind to right minded thinking. The Course says that an untrained mind can accomplish nothing. And you know, it's pretty provocative statement, because it's saying that a lot of people aren't really accomplishing very much. And the mind has to be trained. Because if you don't train it, you know, it's like a wild animal, it'll run wild. And it needs to be trained in a good way, you know, not in a way that you're giving power to somebody else. You're not giving power to anybody outside of you. This is empowering you to think with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego. You don't have to join a college. You don't have to join a religion. This is a self study course, and it's done by you with the Holy Spirit. If you choose to do it, it's like your mission should you choose to accept? It is to think with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego, which undoes this idea of separation. And I try to emphasize to people that the course is a purely non dualistic thought system, because it's saying, Look, you got one reality, and that is God and His Kingdom. It's all spirits, all perfect Oneness. Yes, there's a lot of duality spoken as metaphor in A Course in Miracles. That's why I said it's a language that you pick up as time goes by. But it's very uncompromising. If you take a propensity of evidence and really look through the course and what it's saying is using this, you know, kind of dualistic language to bring us along in a way that we can accept and understand. The Holy Spirit has to think like the Holy Spirit, but communicate with us in a way that we can accept and understand, or else we'd never be able to hear it. So getting back to my teachers, art and person, it took me a long time to realize, over the years, that they're not people, and that what they are appearing to me is the Holy Spirit, appearing as art and in person, appearing as these two beings and these kinds. Of manifestations. These kinds of appearances have been happening all throughout history. Once I found out a little bit more about it, I realized that it's not something new. Saint Germain has been appearing at Mount Shasta for, you know, centuries, and you know, you could talk about Mary the mother of Jesus. You could talk about Mary Magdalene appearing, all these different people appearing, different cultures have their own manifestations. But the course is saying, what that really is, is the Holy Spirit appearing in a way to communicate with you that you can accept and understand. So the very first quotation from A Course in Miracles that my teachers had me use in the book was something that I didn't even understand at the time, but it says there are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits, and remembering their own identity perfectly. These might be called the teachers of teachers, because although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called upon, and they will appear when and where it is helpful for them to do so. So these are teachers of teachers. They are not here anymore. The reason it says they're invisible is because they have gone home to God. Jesus has gone home. He ain't coming back. I hate to break it to you Christians, but he ain't coming back. You know, he's he's home. And rather than dragging him back in here what he wants and what the Holy Spirit wants is for us to go home and be with them as one in heaven, that awareness of perfect Oneness that I was just talking about, that's where we're all going to we're all going to end up there. You know, everybody's going to go home. Time is something that is not linear. It's something that also is not real. Time and space themselves are simply separation ideas. You know, the idea of space. You know that you're over there in Austin, you know, and I'm here in Hollywood, that's an illusion, too. There's only one of us, and there's no such thing as Austin or Hollywood, it's all made up, you know, the whole thing. And what we want to do is return to the experience of what we really are and where we really are, which is by undoing the ego. And one of the ways to do that is to stop, you know, like, kind of like being so taken with the body, because the body is the ego's, you know, number one achievement, it cherishes the idea of the body, because the body is the idea of separation given form, you know. So the course is very big teaching. It speaks in a very big language, for example, at the end of the course the last session, it gives this definition of temptation, which is a little bit bigger than the way that most people think of it. You know, oh, I'm tempted by gambling or alcohol or sex or money or whatever. The course is. No temptation has one lesson it would teach in all its forms, wherever it occurs, it would persuade the Holy Son of God. He is a body born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty and bound by what it orders him to feel.

Gary Renard 38:37
You know, so now it's all about the body, and the body is telling you what to feel from the moment you're born to the moment you appear to die. And of course, we never die. You know, what you really are is something that is immortal. It's invulnerable. It's something that can't be threatened by anything in this world, something that can't be touched by anything in this world. It is fearless, and it is possible to have an experience of direct contact with God, even while you appear to be here walking around in a body, you can have that kind of an experience. The Course calls it revelation, but it doesn't use the words the same as other people the court, when the Course talks about Revelation, it talks about direct experience of your perfect Oneness with God. That's why the course also uses the word knowledge. It's kind of like the way that the Gnostics used it. They used the word Gnosis, which means knowledge. But they weren't talking about intellectual knowledge or words the kind of knowledge that they were talking about was knowledge of God, direct experience of being with God. And you can't have that kind of experience as you undo the ego and our on your way home and our awakening in God. But you know, we got to get over this bodily identity. The thinking that that's you know what we are. You know if you're if you're a body, you know you're dead in a few years. But if you are immortal spirit, which is what the Course teaches, you, can actually start to experience that even while you appear to be here. And eventually, as you stop yourself from judging and begin forgiving, not because it's real, which which is judgment, but makes it not real, which is not judging it and looking at it without judgment, then that's the second step. The third step would simply be to engage in what the Course calls vision, you can also call a spiritual sight. And what that is, is to overlook the illusion, overlook the body, and think of people as being what they really are and where they really are. So you know, if I, you know, meet you somewhere and I'm having a normal conversation with you. And I hope that people will have normal conversations even when they're doing A Course in Miracles, you know, because some people, it becomes so spiritual, they forgot how to carry on a normal conversation. And what you do is, while you're being normal and living a normal life. You can think of people as being the perfect creation of God that they really are. So it's kind of like you're overlooking the body, even though you're you're living normal, and you're thinking of that person as being this perfect, divine creation of God that is not part of it. You know, remember, spirit is not a partial attribute. So you're thinking in terms of oneness now, so, so to me, in the back of my mind, you are nothing less than God. You are not part of it. You are all of it, because that is the way that God created you. And one of the big lines in the course is I am as God created me. His son can suffer nothing, and I am his son. To some people, they think, Well, Jesus is God's only son, and that's not the course's way of teaching. We're all God's one child, and we're all going home to have that experience which will become our permanent experience, because it is permanent. In fact, it's the only thing that is permanent. And reality is permanent because it is changeless. So you have unreality which shifts and change. This is a world of shift and change. That's all it does. In fact, that's all you can depend on in this world, is that it's not going to be the same a minute from that, then it appears to be right now, you know? How can you depend on that? You know? How can you depend on a body that isn't going to be here? You know? And the whole thing is always shifting and changing. Reality, on the other hand, is something that is totally changeless and totally a constant. You know, that's the thing that Jesus was alluding to 2000 years ago when he talked about building your house upon the rock instead of the sand. Even though rock changes a little bit, but it's, you know, metaphor. He's saying you want to choose what doesn't change instead of what does change. And what doesn't change is eternal. And that is God. That is heaven. In fact, it turns out the word eternal, you know, I first heard that where I thought, yeah, sounds like a long time. You know, eternal, and actually, what it means is without time, in eternity, there's no such thing as time. So you don't have a past to be guilty about, you don't have a future to be worried about, and you're engaging in this incredible experience that we can only try to imitate, you know, in this world, I was talking with one of my teachers, perse, who appears as this beautiful, amazing looking woman. You got this beautiful woman, and you got this guy, Arden, he's kind of like a Greek looking guy, tall, dark, handsome, I hate him, and then you get a person and it's like, yeah. I said, you know, no time. It's always the same. Isn't that kind of boring? And she just looked me and she said, Well, Gary is sex boring? I said, Well, no, not in my book. And she said, Well, imagine the peak of a perfect sexual orgasm, except this orgasm never stops. Keeps going on forever in its flawless intensity. And I said, you have my attention, and it's like. That oneness with God. That's what it's like. It's like a perfect orgasm. And all that we can do in this world is try to imitate it, which is what we've done. We have made up relationships, including sexual relationships, as an attempt, a vain attempt, to try to substitute for the relationship that we think that we have lost, with our Creator. And what we really want to do is, now, I'm not saying you can't have fun while you're here to be here. What I'm saying is that we want to go for the real deal. You know, we want to go home to the real thing. And the real thing is God, and in fact, that's the only thing that will ever really satisfy us. We will never be really satisfied with anything less than all of it. You know, I have been billionaires over the years, and I'll talk to them, and they'll say, you know, Gary, yeah, I got everything I could ever want. I can have anything I could ever want, and I still feel like something is missing, and I'll just look him right in the face and I'll say, Well, you know, that's because something is missing, and what is missing is God. And you know, you may not want to hear that, because you may not be into God, but I'm telling you, you will never be satisfied with anything less than all of it. And, you know, I might hear from them six months later or a year later, and maybe they start doing the workbook of the course or something, and they'll say, You know what, I think you were right. Because this is starting to undo that feeling that something is missing. I'm starting to feel more whole and full and complete, and that's what we really are. Is something that has nothing lacking at all, and it doesn't depend on circumstances in this world. I mean, after all, how many yachts Can you water ski behind anyway? You know? I mean, you know, you got 180 $8 billion is 190 you know, two more billion really going to make a difference. I mean, what we want is the real thing, and the real thing is an experience doesn't have anything to do with anything outside of us that will never do it. And I'm not saying that. You know, people can't have a normal life and still have their hopes and their dreams and their goals and their relationships and all that. What I'm saying is that there's something just beyond that, and it's here, and it's here right now, and it's God, and God's Kingdom is here right now, and that's what you want to go for, and that's why the Course talks about saving us all this time, because it's undoing what is preventing the experience of that and experience, even though it looks very intellectual at first, the Course of Miracles, turns out to be very experiential, because it's undoing the False experience. I'm not saying that people that their experience isn't real for them. I'm not saying look, yeah, it is your experience, that you're a body and that there's pain and that you have all these negative experiences. What I'm telling you is that it is a false experience, that what we're seeing is not true. And I almost hesitate to say this, but this world that people think is this glorious creation of God is not and God had nothing to do with it. God had nothing to do with creating this world. That's why I say that A Course in Miracles is a purely non dualistic system, because it's saying that of the two seeming worlds, the world of God and the world of man, only the world of God is true and the world of man is not true, nor is anything in it, period. And that's why this is such an uncompromising thing. That's what I say. I was kind of like sucked into teaching it, but that's the truth. God has nothing to do with this world, and that's kind of like an alien thought to some people. But think about it, if God had nothing to do with this world, well, maybe that means that he's not as crazy as we are. You know, maybe that means that there is still a perfect home for us to go home too, rather than this crazy miscreation that we thought God made when the truth is God is still perfect, still in heaven, still that awareness of perfect Oneness, still, that home that Jesus is talking about in the story of the prodigal son, you know, going home. And maybe what God wants is not for us to do anything here, but to come home to him. And the course is saying, look, there's a fast way to do that. And the fast. Is not by making this real, this world, or worshiping this world, or anything in it, but by overlooking the miscreation and replacing it with the creation, replacing it with reality, which is God and His kingdom. So when the Course talks about saving us time, that's what it's getting at now I know that not everybody is going to go for that. Not everybody's going to beat a path to my doorstep and want to read what I have to say. What I am saying is that if you give it a try and if you look into it, you may find that you can have your cake and eat it too, because you can still have your life. You can still have what the Course says is the happy dream. And by the way, this world is not the happy dream. And nobody in their right mind would come here. This is not the happy dream. This is the opposite of heaven. This is what the Course calls the dream of death, where everything and it eventually fizzles out and dies. And even the most beautiful things in it, the way my teachers describe it, it's like you painted a beautiful painting, but you used inferior paint and an inferior canvas, and it begins to decay and fall apart. And that happens to everything in this universe. And I'm not saying that to bum people out. I'm saying that to say there's something better, that there is something that is eternal. I can see you want to ask a question,

Alex Ferrari 51:30
Yeah, yeah. Gary, so I have to ask you, there's a lot to unpack. It's a lot to unpack there.

Gary Renard 51:36
I know that's why I talk fast, because there is so much.

Alex Ferrari 51:39
Yeah. I mean, it's a fairly thick book, to say the least.

Gary Renard 51:44
Okay, I want to add, though, that the disappearance of the universe is very readable, and it takes this incredible force and condenses it into something that is understandable.

Alex Ferrari 51:56
So, okay, so if God didn't create this universe, then, who did? Is my first question. Secondly, what is the purpose of the soul to come down here, to experience this, this experience? Because there is heaven on earth in many times. Look, I've had heaven on earth in this in many moments of time, in my lifetime. Is it difficult? Yes. Is it challenging? Absolutely. Is it something that I am going through on a daily basis? Absolutely. But there are moments of beauty. Just like you said, You painted a beautiful painting, but the paints start to weird out. Everything is going to go 100 years from now, there'll be strangers in our house, like Alan Watts said, 1000 years from now, nobody will remember us or this conversation, but for the moments, there are moments of happiness, there's moments of joy, there's moments of love, there's moments of all of that. So there is this experience that we're experiencing here. There is this movie, this play, that we're walking through. And as Shakespeare said, We are the actors in this stage in many ways. So first question, if we didn't, if God didn't create this whole universe, then who did or what did? And secondly, what is the purpose of us coming down here to experience this?

Gary Renard 53:12
Okay, this world was made by what I earlier called Diego, the one collective mind that thinks it is here and you are you are it. But then, through the devices of separation, it appears like there are trillions of objects and billions of people. But the universe of time and space was made and is still being projected. But when I say it was made, all it is is a projection. It has no reality in itself. The universe of time and space is nothing but a projection like in a movie theater. And that's what made the universe of time and space a projection based on the thought of separation, that, of course, miracles refers to as the ego. And then, yeah, you have all these little individual egos, because the course, has to talk to us once again in a way that we can accept and understand. So that's what made this universe of time and space, and God had nothing to do with it, and a good experience.

Alex Ferrari 54:12
Hold on, yeah, before you continue, I'm having trouble with this. I just want to understand. So if God didn't, didn't make this and this. And I understand your concept, the idea of that, the that the universe was made by a projection of a thought of separation. I get that, but who created the thought? Because I understand that we are doing a collective this universe exists because we have all collectively agreed in this reality. And it's all being created as we're creating it, if you will. I get that, but there had to be a starting point, at least from this understanding of reality. There had to be a starting point where God, if God, is omnipresent throughout existence, and this is a thought of separation and. An experiment. Let's say it had to be created by some thing, not just a thought, if it was a thought who created the thought, Is my, is my question.

Gary Renard 55:09
And well, you unpacked a lot here too, and you touched on the word existence, like everything else. The course, has a little different idea about that. And the answer is, the universe does not exist, that it does not exist that isn't an illusion. And people do not welcome this idea at first, because it means that you do not exist and we do not exist as separate beings. And yeah, there was what seemed to be a thought of separation. But how could there be a thought of separation if it doesn't exist? So the ultimate goal in the course, and it also says the full awareness of the atonement, is that the separation never occurred. It never happened. And this is a dream. So you are still at home in God. You never left. You're still there, just like when you're having a dream in bed at night, you're still in the bed, you haven't gone anywhere. And the Course says you are at home in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. Now, events in a dream do appear to exist. That doesn't mean that they're really happening, and it doesn't mean that they really exist. They don't. And so that's what the course is saying about the universe of time and space

Alex Ferrari 56:37
That makes now, I got it. I got it. So it's a dream which we all it's an old idea of the great dream. The aborigine, the aboriginals, think of it as the great dream. Maya, the Hindus, all that I get that and that they and that I agree with you 100% our soul, our oversoul, our bigger self, is at home with God. This is a dream. This is a falsehood of a of an experience. I get all of what you just said. So that makes much more sense, because I was, I just couldn't find the the origin, the origin point I needed to, like, if there is a thought, who thought the thought, what thought? The thought is the question of separation. Now that makes sense to me. I get it

Gary Renard 57:18
Right, and the real use is still at home, and what A Course in Miracles is doing for us is it is speeding our awakening from that dream. Yeah, so instead of hanging around another, you know, million years, or whatever, you know, maybe you can get out of here one or two lifetimes. And that's why the course, talks about saving 1000s of years with the miracle. And you know, I recognize that it's not for everybody. It is extremely radical. And, you know, what the heck? You know, somebody asked,

Alex Ferrari 57:58
But Gary, I have to, I have to say I don't feel, I don't feel that it's radical. I mean, from my point of view, I don't feel that it's a radical idea. I think all spirituality, again, from my point of view, because I study so many different paths, all going to the same place, in many ways, is about trying to get you to awaken. That's the concept of enlightenment, awakened. Buddhism does a Hinduism, all of them. Christianity does it. Islam does all of them in one way, shape or form, is trying to connect you back to source some there's a lot of a lot of, let's say, bumps in the road that man has put if the Holy Bible is an example of of you know what the true teachings of Jesus were, versus what man created based on those teachings and so on. So I don't think again. My point of view, and my opinion, again, is that it's not a radical idea. I think we're all trying to awaken faster. It's just the Course in Miracles is a speed train, a bullet train, to awakening. But many others have other ways of going down another road that hopefully will awaken you as well. It's what resonates with you. Because, like you said, it's not for everybody, but when it does resonate with you, like someone like yourself, it is open doors that isn't met. But just like if you were with a guru in India, going down that kind of path, or if you're doing another path, it's just different paths to the same place. But I don't believe it's a radical. I think what you're saying is absolutely true.

Gary Renard 59:25
Well, I like the way that you put it, a bullet train speeding to reality, really, sure. And that's the thing about the course. Yes, we all have the same goal all the various disciplines, and what A Course in Miracles is saying, well, let's cut to the chase, you know, let's cut the BS and get get home quicker. And that's about it. And what it is once you start to understand it, which you know is not that easy, once you start to understand it, then the real work begins. And that's how. Actually doing it, because it's saying that everything is equally untrue, everything is equally unreal, which means that you want to forgive everything. Now, if this world was real and if the things in it were real, it would not be forgivable. There are things in this world that would not be forgivable, that you would feel like an animal for forgiving them, but what if they're not real? What if they're not true? So the court says that we forgive our brother not because he's really done something, but because he hasn't really done anything, because we're the ones who made him up in the first place. So you stop yourself from reacting not because it's true, but because it isn't, you kind of like choose the right teacher, which, course, in miracles we call the holy instant we you choose the right teacher, and then you overlook the illusion. You overlook what isn't true, and think of that person as being what they really are and who they really are. So once again, you kind of like replacing the unreal with the truth, and that is spiritual sight. And you start to think big, you know, you start to think like, you know, God is here right now, and if I'm exactly the same as God, I can be love. You know, God really is love, and I can be love. And of course, America says, Teach only love, for that is what you are. Now, it's not always easy to teach only love when you're confronted by the details of the illusion, but it is doable. It is possible to train the mind to think with the Holy Spirit. And eventually, you know, somewhere down the road, you'll suddenly have it dawn on you that you are the Holy Spirit, that that's the real you, because the real you is spirit. And once you get up to the level of spirit, it's all the same. You know, there's no separation. There is no difference. When you get back to heaven, the course teaches there is no difference between God and you, that you are in this state of perfect Oneness that is exactly the same. If it's okay. I just want to quickly, you know, kind of like, recite this little part of A Course in Miracles, because I said this is very big teaching, this kind of gives you an idea of the magnitude of the spiritual sight that I'm talking about. The course uses the word vision, you know, the vision that this is leading to. And it says, By the way, this is from the part of the course called the forgotten song. It says, beyond the body, you know beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see, and yet somehow familiar is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes, the edges of the circle disappear and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity, forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere within it, everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine anything could be outside. For there is nowhere that this light is not this is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his father. Here is the memory of what you are. And the fastest way to get to that memory of what you are is to see it everywhere. See it in everybody. And of course, is to have all give all to all, no exceptions, you know. So you want to have all, which would be the kingdom of heaven, that's all of it. Then you give that away. You give that, that love and that spirit to everybody, without exception. So to me, people are no longer people. They are spirit exactly as they were created by God. And in turn, by giving that away, you can have all you can start to have the experience that you are as God created you. And you know that's really the experience that the course is leading us to, and you have little glimpses of that as you go along, and maybe you'll be sitting around, and maybe you won't be doing anything special, and you've had these kinds of experiences from what you said earlier, but all of a sudden, maybe for just an instant, the world will disappear, and what is left is this brilliant abstraction. And. This abstraction is God, and within that there are no questions, because questions arise from doubt. So the course describes this as the complete temporary suspension of doubt and fear. There is no fear, there is no doubt in this experience, because, you know, there can't be any questions without doubt. So you have that experience of God. And once you have that, you might say, give me more of that. Yeah, because now I'm getting a preview of coming attractions, you know, now I'm being shown what my reality is going to be like for eternity. And you might say, okay, you know, I've been around this world enough. You know, I've been around the block a couple of times. And you know, not everybody is ready to say that. Not everybody is willing to say goodbye to this world and to go home to God. And you know that'll happen when it's supposed to. I'm just saying that if this is your time, then maybe you want to help facilitate that time going by faster so that you can be at home and have that experience on a permanent basis. Now.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:13
Now, Gary, you mentioned, if I'm not mistaken, you wrote a book about Jesus and Buddha. Is that correct?

Gary Renard 1:06:19
Yes, yeah. It's called the lifetimes when Jesus and Buddha knew each other. And it turns out that before their final lifetimes, they did come across each other in other lifetimes before that.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:30
And what's the story behind? What's the story behind their incarnations before that? Because obviously Jesus, you know, if you do believe in reincarnation, Jesus and Buddha were both souls before, and they had to go through the same kind of path that we all have gone through or going through, but they just finally got out, if you will, out of this, out of this cycle, if you will. But I'm curious first of all, where did you get the information? Did it appear to you, if I'm not mistaken, and how? What's the story behind their meeting?

Gary Renard 1:07:01
Well, there were six different lifetimes where they were fairly close to each other before their final incarnations. I say incarnations loosely because we're not in a body. We've never been in a body, and we never will be in a body. This is this body's just as much an illusion as this desk in front of me, sure, and if I hold my hand up in front of my face as that's just part of the same illusion as everything else. But the thing about Jesus and Buddha and this, this wasn't given to me directly by them. It was given to me by my teachers, Arden and person who knew both of them in other lifetimes, and so they are the storytellers in the book. And they chronicled these six different lifetimes that they had together different time periods, you know, in Japan, you know, or 3000 years ago, Ancient Egypt, the time of Plato, various times of their learning, and what gave them a head start and why they woke up before most of us is because they didn't buy into the dream. They didn't believe in it as much as most people did. There was that aspect of their mind that just didn't fall for it, hook, line and sinker, the way that most people did, and they never had that feeling that it was real. So that gave them a gigantic head start in awakening from the dream. And the whole thing is detailed in the book. It would take me hours to tell you the story, but that was actually my most recent book. It's been a long time. It's been about eight years since my last book, but my new one will be out in a few months, and I went a while without one because I wasn't even sure that there would be another one. But it started coming to me through Arden in person, and they are brilliant storytellers and people who think that I wrote the books tell me that that is the best writing of all the books, the fourth one. And, you know, I don't take credit for it. The only part of the books that come from me are when I'm engaging in the conversations with them. I try to hold up my end of the conversation, and I do insert my narration and my notes so you get my story. So people who have read my books know me very well. They know all these details about and so when they meet me, they think of me as being their friend, and I'm happy to have them as my friend. They just have me at a disadvantage because they know everything about me, and I don't know anything about them, but I know who they really are, and who they really are is nothing less than God and Jesus and Buddha learned that, you know sooner than the rest of us, and once you start to understand the things that, of course, America's been saying. You can go back and hear the stories of Jesus 2000 years ago and see some of the things that he was saying, and you can pick up on it, and you can say, Yeah, okay, he was teaching the same things back then. And then the people who wrote the Bible informed the religion, put a few things in his mouth that don't belong there just a few they didn't really say, and they made a religion out of it. But you can see the core of it. You can see the where it started and what he was really teaching, and he hasn't changed. It's just more advanced in our ability to understand it. So we can get it on a lot deeper level. And one of the wild things about A Course in Miracles is that you keep getting it on deeper and deeper levels as you go along, and that leads to deeper experience of it as you go along. So I'll tell you, if I hadn't found A Course in Miracles, or if it hadn't found me, I think my life would have been kind of sad. But because of it, I think that I've made a lot of progress in this lifetime. I'm told that I could awaken in this lifetime, but that's the rest is up to me. So it's not always easy to do, but it is doable. The Holy Spirit wouldn't give us a job that wasn't doable. So it is possible to do it.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:22
Well, Gary, then let me ask you, what would you tell somebody who has lost faith, not only in God, but in this experience itself, in this dream itself?

Gary Renard 1:11:34
I would say, first of all, I don't blame them. Of course, in Miracle says, if this were the real world, God would be cruel, you know, for no father could subject his children to this is the price of salvation and be loving. So that's why the course is very, you know, uncompromising about that point. You know that God really is love. And both the Bible and, of course, miracles say that God is perfect love, but the course doesn't compromise on that. It says, look, it's really perfect love. All that it knows how to do is love. If it knew how to do anything else, it wouldn't be perfect love, you know. So you know it's talking about a God that is so loving, it gives us a perfect home. And that's the kind of home you want to go home to. And it's possible to be what you really are, even while you appear to be here. And certainly, we've all seen or heard of masters who really live that who really are love and treat everybody with love and with kindness. And you know, another teacher of mine said his name is Ken WAP, and he said, you know, be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a tough battle, and it's not easy being human. It's not easy being here. Even if you're one of the lucky ones, it's still not easy, you know. So I think that you can ask yourself, as you go along with this, and this is how you know that you're really doing it, am I becoming more kind? Am I becoming more loving? How do I treat people? You know? How am I in the world? Not that there's a real world, but you're demonstrating all the time that you believe in one of two thought systems. You either believe in the thought system of the ego, which is based on separation, and along with that comes fear because you're no longer whole, or one, which means that you're vulnerable. You see all these tough guys on TV, you know, with their tough speeches and everything. Well, if they weren't afraid, they wouldn't have to be tough. You know, that's cover up for the fact that they're actually afraid. But what if you could be fearless? What if you could be invulnerable? You could get to the point where you realize that nothing in this world can harm you because you're not a body, because you are immortal, and you start to take on a different identity of what you really are and what you really are. But you do that, and you save time at the same time, and you start to experience that you're not a body. Yeah, I just want to give you two sentences from this workbook lesson in the course, he's talking about death, and it's saying, you know, what dies was never living in reality. So this, you know, illusion that we seem to be in this body. How can it die when never lived. He was never living in reality, and did but mock the truth about myself. This body mocks me. It marks what I really am. It's just this image that has nothing to do with what I am. So it says. Now I disown self concepts and deceits and lies about the Holy Son of God. Now, am I ready to accept him back? Is God created him and as he is? And you do that by thinking of people, because, you know, spiritual side is really done with the mind. And you do that by thinking of people in this way. And I think the more you do that, the more you get used to it. Of course, as miracles are habits. So you get into the habit of thinking with the Holy Spirit, instead of the ego and a disciplined mind can do this. And it actually gets easier as you go along as the as the years go on, it becomes like a part of you, and you just do it automatically. Yeah, you have to think about it at first, but after a while, it becomes a part of you, and you just do it. And then you're really making progress, and you're really getting home. And you know, you something happens in the world. You can just be love, and you can be guided by the Holy Spirit, because that's where inspiration comes from. You know, the word inspired comes from the phrase in spirit. You know, the more you are in spirit, the more you can accept that guidance that is coming to you from the Holy Spirit. And it's loving and it's kind, and it leads to peace. And if I can say one more thing that I think is really important about this, because everybody wants world peace. Everybody wants to stop the violence and the mayhem. And my teacher said something very important in the first book. He said, the people of the world will never live in peace, until the people of the world have inner peace. And that is so important, because the course teaches that what we're seeing out there on the screen that we made is an outer picture of an inward condition, and until you change that collective inner condition, then the outer picture can't change, because it's just an effect. The cause is in the mind. That's why the Course says, this is a course in cause and not effect. And what you do is you change what is within. And when enough people in the world have achieved inner peace, outer peace would literally have to follow, because what you're seeing is that just an outer picture that represents that inner condition, which is so brilliant the way that the people who published the Course in Miracles, they called themselves the foundation for inner peace, because that is what this leads to, and eventually down the road, you know, not in our lifetime, but down the road this will actually lead to peace on Earth. But once you get to that point, the Earth is nearing its end because its usefulness to the ego will have vanished.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:48
Beautifully, said Gary. Gary, this has been such a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for all the love and the light that you've talked about in this com, in this in this episode, if where can people find out more about you and the amazing work you're doing in the world.

Gary Renard 1:18:01
Oh, well, thank you, Alex. And thank you for saying that. It means a lot to me, and it's a great podcast you get going here, so keep it up. And yeah, if they want to know more about me or my work, they just go to garyrenard.com I thought of the name for the website myself. It's Gary Renard garyrenard.com, you'll find way more information than you care to find at that website. And I have a new website that's coming out along with the new book in the next couple of months, but the name of the website will stay the same. All of my books are at amazon.com and many bookstores and many languages. And you know, a lot of people have read all of them, and I'm not saying you have to read all of them. The first one will explain the Course in Miracles. And as I said, I couldn't have done that, but if you read all four of them, then you will really be ready for the fifth one, but that's up to you.

Alex Ferrari 1:19:03
Now Gary, finally, if, if you knew this was going to be your final interview, what truth would you leave behind that no book could cover?

Gary Renard 1:19:12
Wow, it's quite a question. What I would leave behind is that there's an old Chinese saying. It says to know, but not do. It's not yet, no, even when you learn all of this spiritual information, even when you have all this stuff in your mind, it won't do you a bit of good. If you don't apply it, you have to apply it to your everyday life. If you don't, you're getting nowhere. But if you really apply it, and you know, take what you've learned and apply it to all, not just the people, but the situations and the events, anything that comes up in front of your face, if you do that, then you're going to be hitting home runs. You know, then you're going to be getting home, you know, so much faster than you otherwise would have. It is well worth doing, but you got to remember to do it and get into the habit of always doing it.

Alex Ferrari 1:20:13
Gary, it has been a pleasure and honor speaking to you today, my friend. Thank you again, so much for being on the show and everything you're doing to help awaken this planet, my friend. So thank you again.

Gary Renard 1:20:22
Thank you, Alex.