May 20, 2025 • 59 mins
Episode #206 of World Awakenings celebrates 50 years of A Course in Miracles with a board member of the Foundation for Inner Peace, Celina Granato. From a young age, Celina she wanted to understand the nature of reality. By her mid-twenties, she had explored various paths in search of genuine peace when she was introduced to A Course in Miracles, which became her primary spiritual practice, guiding her through life’s challenges by focusing on a thought system of true forgiveness. Originally from the American Midwest and raised in a salt-of-the-earth community with a multicultural upbringing, Celina sees interpersonal relationships as some of the greatest opportunities for doing inner work. Now a student of the Course for over 20 years, she understands the Course as a self-study practice for the mind and being uncompromising to the principles of the Course leads to genuine spiritual growth. She is currently the Chief International and Communications Officer at the Foundation for Inner Peace. The official publisher of A Course in Miracles!
If you would like to subscribe to the new TV network, New Reality TV, just click this link.
To see the list of the top 20 metaphysical podcasts in the world on feedspot.com, click this link https://podcast.feedspot.com/metaphysical_podcasts/
The book discussed by Karl & Celina is "The Disappearance of the Universe" by Gary Renard
For more information about A Course in Miracles, and to easily read the entire book online, go to https://acim.org/acim/en/
If you would like to subscribe to the new TV network, New Reality TV, just click this link.
To see the list of the top 20 metaphysical podcasts in the world on feedspot.com, click this link https://podcast.feedspot.com/metaphysical_podcasts/
The book discussed by Karl & Celina is "The Disappearance of the Universe" by Gary Renard
For more information about A Course in Miracles, and to easily read the entire book online, go to https://acim.org/acim/en/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is World Awakenings, the fast Track to Enlightenment with
your host Carl Gruber. World Awakenings is a podcast dedicated
to opening your mind, your heart, and your eyes to
the fact that the world's population is now more than ever,
awakening to all things spiritual, metaphysical, and enlightening and just
(00:27):
how they play an all important role in our daily life.
So join Carl on this enlightening experience as he interviews
metaphysical and spiritual experts to discuss, debate, and delve deeply
into the house and whis of this world wide awakening.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome once again to our health report with the Wizard
of Wellness, doctor Glenn Swardout. Doctor Glenn is a naturopathic
healer from Hawaii, and this is the segment of World
Awakenings where we ask him to suggest a natural remedy
for a health question you'd like to know the answer to. Unfortunately,
(01:13):
doctor swort Out, way too many people in the world
suffer from something called chronic inflammation. What is chronic inflammation
and what natural remedy do you suggest.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
The chronic inflammation In modern medicine, we kind of have
the idea that it's it's the boogeyman. It is a
bad thing, and it's at the root of many most
of our chronic degenerative diseases. So yeah, it has very
bad effects. But we need to look a little deeper
to understand why do we have that inflammation, Where's it
(01:47):
come from, How does the body produce inflammation, what is
the body trying to do to heal itself, and why
does it get stuck in that mode of trying rather
than having maybe acute inflammation being done with it and
moving on to other phases of healing of repair, regeneration.
So inflammation is like a fire burning, right, It's it's
(02:10):
it's like heat like fire, and so it's what is
it trying to burn off? It's trying to burn off
what doesn't belong in the body, toxins, pathogens, whatever is there,
it's not supposed.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
To be there.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
How do we move it out?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, we need to.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
We need to have heat or energy to dissolve what's there.
If it's deposited, we've got to dissolve it. That takes energy,
and we want to expand the tissue, bringing more fluid
to dissolve it as well to move it through. So
we have the classic symptoms of heat and swelling, redness, pain,
(02:45):
Those all go along in various degrees with inflammation. So
what is it that in our body that produces inflammation. Well,
it's not the it's not the virus that actually makes
the inflammation. It's not the top that makes the inflammation.
Typically it's the immune system's response to that foreign invader.
(03:07):
So the immune system is pro inflammatory. What's in the
body always has something to balance it out, right, what's
the anti inflammatory part, Well, that would be the adrenals.
So the thyme is and the adrenals part to parts
of the hormonal communication system of the body. And if
we are in a state where we're toxic and we're
(03:29):
trying to clean that out and the immune system doesn't
have enough power, enough strength to clean it out efficiently
get it done, then it's maybe stuck in that state
of trying to cleanse, trying to cleanse, trying to cleanse.
So inflammation, inflammation, inflammation, day after day, and that's where
we have damage from that inflammation that doesn't ever get
to the healing phase of repair and regeneration. Given a
(03:53):
quick example, if you have a headache, that's there's inflammation, right,
and you take an aspirin. We're talked to take an aspirin,
and we know that that takes down the inflammation. Inflammation
is acidic and the tissue to dissolve, and acid will
dissolve things. When there's not, inflammation goes to the alkaline side.
So what does aspirin do. It alkalizes the tissue, so
(04:14):
it reduces the inflammation kind of like the adrenals would,
but it overalkalizes it. Now you have aspirin plus the
toxins or foreign bodies that were in there, and the
immune system is stuck having to clean out even more.
And this research shows you'll have more headaches in the
future if you take an aspirin to resolve it now.
So the real solution is how do we help the
(04:36):
immune system to get the job done not have to
work so hard or so long. And that's where even
having a fever, a flu, a cold once or twice
a year is actually preventive. Prevents helps prevent cancer because
it's cleaning out if you have a stomach flu, it's
(04:57):
not just cleaning out the virus that we think of,
Oh that's the trigger, Yeah, okay, that's the trigger, and
the immune system is creating the flu symptoms and it's
cleaning out everything in that tissue, all build up of
toxins from the past year.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
If you have a particular health question you would like
to ask doctor Glenn and would like to know what
is the best natural remedy to use instead of toxic pharmaceuticals,
you can email me your question at Kwgruber at yahoo
dot com and you can go to his website, remedymatch
(05:32):
dot com to purchase one of doctor sward Out's products.
As a listener of World Awakenings, make sure to use
the discount code awake. That's all capital letters awake to
receive your ten percent off discount. Hey, welcome once again,
(06:06):
my friends, to another awesome episode of World Awakenings, a
fast Track to Enlightenment. I'm your host, Carl Gruber. I
absolutely love it when this show stays in line with
the beautiful teachings of the modern spiritual guide called a
Course in Miracles, and this is one of those shows. Now,
if you desire to seek your hire and more loving self,
(06:27):
you're in the right place. Before we meet our guest,
I'm proud to tell you, however, that this show, after
seven years in production, has been selected by feedspot dot
com as the number two of the top twenty metaphysical
podcasts in the world. Woo who so I appreciate it.
Thank you friends. Also, you can now not only watch
(06:49):
this show on YouTube, but you can also watch it
on your home TV on the new TV network New
Reality TV. Just scan the QR code you see on
the scare and check it out. So thank you for that. Well,
let's meet our guest today of Selena Granado. From a
young age, she wanted to understand the nature of reality,
(07:12):
and by her mid twenties she had explored various paths
in search of genuine peace when she was introduced to
a course in Miracles, which became her primary spiritual practice,
guiding her through life's challenges by focusing on a thought
system of true forgiveness. Originally from the American Midwest and
raised in Sault of the Earth community with a multicultural upbringing,
(07:36):
I like that. Selena sees interpersonal relationships as some of
the greatest opportunities for doing inner work. Now a student
of the course for over twenty years, she understands that
the course is a self studied practice for the mind
and being uncompromising to the principles of the course leads
(07:56):
to genuine spiritual growth. Here Here is currently the chief
International and Communications Officer at the Foundation for Inner Peace,
the official publisher of a course in Miracles. That is
so cool, Selina, thank you for being on World Awakenings.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Hey, Carl, thanks so much for having me. I'm so
happy to be here with you. That's going to be
a fun conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, you know, as you can tell, I am, I'm
just over the moon when I can talk about the
course as I know you are. Anything we can do
to help us spread the truth and the beauty of it.
But you know, before we dive into your life and
things about you, I'm so grateful, like I said, to
have you on the show, since we're both dedicated students
(08:42):
of the course. Before you find out more about you
your path to finding and studying the course, would you
care to give us a short explanation of just how
the course came into being and what it's all about.
I know that's kind of a big ask about if
you could do that.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
And it's a big ask, but I'll try my best
here for those who don't know, I'm sure a lot
of students do know, but I'll do a like eye
level overview. So the chorus actually here as we're recording
and talking. It's twenty twenty five. It's been in print
now for fifty years, so that's when the first publishing,
the first printings happened. But about ten years before that
(09:19):
is really when it began by two Colombian psychologists, doctors
Helen Schuckman and William Thetford, came together through a shared
decision at Columbia University that there's got to be a
better way. There was a lot of conflict and strife
in their relationship and also relationships within the department they
(09:43):
had worked together. They were both brilliant minds and very
dedicated to their work and their patients and their practice
and their expertise of psychology. But it was right around
nineteen sixty five. I think that Helen started hearing a
voice around October of sixty five, as I recall, and
(10:05):
this voice came. It was sort of an It was
an inner voice that came to her that was very clear,
and she heard it. She listened to what it was saying.
She didn't like it very much how it was happening.
But this voice came after a series of dreams. She
(10:26):
had been having that summer, and also after she and
Bill had made the decision there's got to be a
better way. He said that there's got to be a
better way than what they were experiencing. And she said, yes, Bill,
and I'm here to help you find it. So there
was first that decision, that committment there, and then things
began to unravel. So months later, as a voice courage,
(10:48):
she wasn't very happy about it, and she came she said, oh,
this has been happening to me. What is it I
need to do? I'm not okay with us at all.
And Bill said something really gently to her, something like,
you know, why don't you come to the office tomorrow.
Let's take a look. Why don't you write down what
it's saying. Let me take a look at these your writings,
and you know what, if it's just a bunch of gibberish,
(11:10):
we throw it away and nothing will nobody will ever know.
And if you know, you write something down, let's just
look at it together. So that's exactly what she did.
She took her stone books and wrote down exactly what
she was getting from this inner guidance, this inner voice.
And they came to build the next day, and it
(11:31):
was like, Wow, there is really something here, something here
worth learning, something here worth that's showing us that there's
got to be a better way of looking at relationships,
looking at what this experience is. And that's sort of
how the course was born. Now, not right away, it
(11:52):
happened in about It took about I think sixty five
to seventy three. You know, Helen was probably working out
a little little bit of i'll say bugs, like really
learning to practice hearing the voice. But it was she
through a period of seven years. She and Bill, and
we consider Bill a coscribe as well, even though the
(12:13):
voice came through Helen, they coscribed a course in miracles.
This is a course in miracles, please take note. And
she wrote it down. And so this was for about
a period of seven years. Okay, so along that time
a few years later, that's when most course students are
familiar with the names doctor uh, doctor Ken, sorry Ken,
(12:40):
and Judish Sketch whitson. And when they came into the picture.
Ken was also a psychologist and helped with a lot
of the finalization of the publishing and started putting Roman
numerals and putting things in their place, and then it
was Judith's sketch whitson, who's our founder here at the
(13:03):
or one of the co founders of the Foundation for
Inner Peace, and she was the one to with the
four of them together decided that they would begin to
publish this and share it with the world. And that
was about nineteen seventy five, so about ten years after
the inception of the writing. And yeah, so that's really
(13:26):
how it began as far as the form it took.
But what it's saying is something much deeper, and it
is really an essence, a document, a teaching that is
meant to be a self study that is about forgiveness,
and not forgiveness is generally how the world has historically
or traditionally thought about forgiveness, but forgiveness in a way
(13:50):
to where it is about looking within yourself. It is
about it's an inner work. It is about getting in
connect with God. It's about pure awareness understanding that love
in God is God is the only reality, and God
(14:10):
is love, which is pure awareness. And so this idea
of forgiveness is really understanding that the experience we have
are having is just that an experience, and that our
true real essence, our natural inheritance is that we're really love,
We're really at home. It's safe with God. Now that's
(14:31):
really deep. That's really deep, because everything about in our
experience in the world is telling us often something differently
okay about being out in the world, and not always,
but often has been our experience in this world. So
this course is really a course in miracles. It's not
(14:52):
just the course is not the only past path, but
it is a course that points the way to looking
inside again and looking at what can come up in
the mind and seeing it with the Holy Spirit. So
much in the same way that Helen and Bill said,
(15:13):
there's got to be a better way. Most of the
people come to the course on the spiritual path at
some point have realized, Okay, there has got to be
a better way to believe, think, live this life, start
to overlook all of these pains and sufferings I've been experiencing.
(15:34):
So yeah, So it is a path home, and from
my personal experience I've been to see over twenty years,
as you said, but I see it as a non dualistic,
purely non dualistic path, which for me means that there
is no compromise, There is only God in reality, God
is the only reality and that is our true oneness
(15:59):
experience and that's it ultimately is leading us and that's deep.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So while the words that changed the world, there has
got to be a better way and we all ask that.
But thank you for that explanation. It was a big ask.
If I had to do it, I'd be stumbling and
bumbling around for seven hours. So but beautiful, Yes, that
is that is the what a course is all about.
(16:26):
Now let's let's go to you. Now you already mentioned forgiveness,
and my understanding is that your journey to coming to
the UH of course in miracles involves some forgiveness. And yeah,
quite a story of your own dealing with with a divorce,
I believe. Is that something you care to talk about?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Oh? Sure, sure, I know what you're talking about. I
did a podcast about a little over a year ago
about on Miracle Voices and share forgiveness story, and I
chose that because that's particular story on forgiveness because well,
in my life experience, it was a big deal. It
was a huge life event and it really had a
(17:07):
lot to do with changing not only things were happening
externally in the script in the world, but really it
was my first big opportunity a slow burn as a
lot of course students like to say of really applying
the principles of forgiveness. So there's certainly that's probably been
one of my biggest lessons. But there's all. I mean,
(17:31):
there's lots of things, you know, you can talk about
relationships and anxiety and different things that have come up
for me in the world. So you can pick your
poison there. We can go a lot of different directions
with us, but I'm happy to talk about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So well, and you know, I do believe we all
have our own forgiveness lessons, Yes, for sure, I mean
we all do. But you know, I'm curious if there
is one aspect of the course's teachings that you would
want anyone who studies it take to take away and
integrate it into their life. What would that be?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Oh goodness, So one aspect of the course is teaching
is to integrate in your life. So first of all,
I would say, it's really truly an understanding of what
the course is saying in practicing, so that if I
were to answer that question, it would be to practice
(18:28):
what the course is saying. You know, I used all
these lofty words to describe it at the beginning, But
really a course in miracles is really a thought system.
It's a practice. The course itself says, I am a
self study teaching. It's a self studied teaching Jesus. And
the course says that that doesn't mean you can't go
(18:50):
out and you can't have discussion and be a discussion
group and the discussion with others. Absolutely, we'd have a
lot of discussion at the foundation, so you can certainly
do that, But it really is about going within and
practicing this thought system of forgiveness. That would be the
one thing I would like to bring up. And so
what does that mean. It's really, I think a simple process.
(19:15):
Now that I've been studying twenty years, I can say
it's simple. As far as the steps is it always easy? Still, No,
there's some resistance there. But what I would say is
you go inside and then anything you've become aware. You
are just aware of what's coming up in your mind.
So as something comes up and I'll say, I like
(19:36):
to say, knocks you off of your piece, Okay, that's
a great way to start, and you don't have to
start with like the really big stuff but like the
little things that come up, you can start saying, oh
I see this. Okay, I'm experiencing this, but let me now,
I'm willing to see this differently and you watch it
(19:59):
with the Holy Spirit. And what does that mean? Watch it?
You allow it? You allow it. And I'm using the
word the words a lot more now in pure love.
This is what I'm understanding this watching to be. It's
really pure awareness. This is what love is. So you're
(20:19):
willing to look at it differently fully love it by
being in your pure awareness.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Well that's beautiful explanation. I think. Recently I've been studying
the text where let's see, it's the lessons of the
Holy Spirit, and one that I've really been trying to practice.
I'm still trying to get consistent with is be vigilant
only for God and his Kingdom. And I have found
(20:52):
that as I practice that on a moment to moment
basis through my day, everything just seems to flow right
along and be in a chord in alignment with a happy, joyful,
peaceful life. Unfortunately, you know, I am not as consistent
as I should be. But now that I understand that,
(21:15):
I tick myself in the butt come home, get back there.
And as soon as I do, as soon as I
get out of a chord and I'm not being vigilant,
things get weird. But when I am consistently vigilant about it,
like I said, everything gets back in alignment.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Yeah, isn't that true? And with practice, like practice makes progress.
And so what I am realizing is like you first
you become aware, and then you kind of become more
aware in a way. It's like you're awareness enhances. Sometimes
I even get to the point where I could almost
(21:52):
see myself having the experience. Now it's not like some
sort of out of body thing, but I could almost
see myself from the part of mind. So if the mind,
let's say the mind is split, we have this section
of the mind that likes to run off of the
ego operating system and see things as unfair and victimize
what we think is our identity and all the different
(22:15):
things that most all of us experience here in the
human world. Right, So we have that part, and then
there is the part that once you practice with seeing
things in love, seeing things with your right mind, seeing
things with the Holy Spirit, it seems like that part
you just become a little bit more attuned to that
(22:35):
right and sometimes because the ego thought system has a tendency,
it really wants to get your attention. It usually it
speaks loudest, it speaks first. You know, a lot of
my practice, especially in the early days, Okay, now what
is this? Where is this coming from? I'd have to
take a step back to really look what's coming from.
But I'm also starting to see that when we're vigilant
(22:57):
and we're operating from the right mind, it is you know,
it's a peaceful, loving feeling and it's a kind feeling.
So the more I get that, the more I practice.
But I also see, okay, the more I have to
practice because I'm like, wait a second, is this truly
(23:17):
peaceful and kind? Want to feel like? Okay, let me
take a step back. So, yes, it's definitely back and forth.
And I think that's one of the biggest things. Isn't
it like to be vigilant? That's really a central tenet
of the course. It's asking us, is too, okay, be mindful.
Look how are you looking at this experience in front
(23:39):
of you?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, And it's a great reminder. So we are talking
to Selena Grenado, the chief communications officer for the publisher
of a course a Miracle is a Foundation for Inner Peace,
which is very cool. Now, my listeners, you know this
is episode number two hundred and six. No, then, I
have had one of the most famous teachers of a
(24:02):
course in Miracles on this show, Gary Renard, at least
three times. I've had his wife on. But I think
it's very appropriate that maybe we need to discuss how
Gary Renard's ground bait breaking book The Disappearance of the
Universe is an important stepping stone to help people to
understand more clearly exactly what the course is all about
(24:23):
and how to understand it more easily. I know many
people because much of it is written in Iambic pentameter,
and even Gary told me once he first started reading, goes,
what the hell is this? This is Gary? You know
what's what? Would you say is a good route to
read that book? Is that a good idea for a
(24:44):
new student? You know?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Will? I have to largely speak from my perspective, and
I know my direct experience is not one that's representative
of Foundation for Interpeace, so I should I should say that,
but I will tell you in my experience and when
I first started with the Course in Miracles. I really
give Gary, and even Cindy. I've followed so much of
(25:06):
her in the last few years too, But Gary's book
twenty years ago a little more than twenty now, has
really been instrumental in helping to understand it was for
me and helping to understand a course of miracles. So
many students either I've met in person or I have
heard over the years, have said the same thing, and
I'm really sort of struck by how much the stories
(25:29):
have been the same. And maybe it's been that way
for you too, Carl, But I mean, I think you've
been studying it a little even longer than myself. But
I remember coming into it like around two thousand and
one is probably where for me individually, I had another
like I don't know how to really say this, but
there was a shift that happened in the mind that
(25:53):
helped open me up to even a little bit deeper
of a spiritual path, Okay, And it was not one
It was not long after this that had occurred for
me that as when I first actually heard about a
course in Miracles. Now, of Course in Miracles has been
published in seventy five, and a lot of people have
been studying it since seventies and eighties. But I was
deepening and going down the spiritual path, and then that
(26:15):
came up to me around a one and I immediately
felt drawn to it. I immediately felt drawn to this.
Oh I want to know more. And you know, the
internet was really unsophisticated back then, and so I would,
you know, peruse the internet and try to find things.
And then I didn't even buy the book. And then
(26:36):
in three there was an on who came and she
had gone to a Unity church in Florida and said,
you know, I was given to these books. I felt
very drawn to giving one to you. I looked at it. It
was a course in miracles. I said, oh, my gosh,
I've been so interested in this. I have not gotten
the book yet. That thank you so much. And I
remember being feeling so delighted in that, and then going in,
(26:59):
opening up, trying to read it, and then I was like,
oh goodness, just like you said with the Iambic pentameter,
it has a Shakespearean sort of prose. I mean, it was,
you know, it is written in a much different way
than we are that we speak here in our modern world.
(27:22):
And so I was like, oh, my goodness, and then
some of the like double negatives, the butts and you know,
which really means not. I was like, okay, this is
this is really hard for me to get my mind around.
And I close the book and I put it in
my bookshelf, still drawn to it, but I'm thinking, okay,
I don't know, I'm quite ready. But it wasn't two
thousand and five that another colleague had given me that
(27:44):
book that Disappears in the Universe by Gary, and that
really it was pivotal moment for me. Not only do
I love all of Gary's books, and I found that
so I opening and it really drew me in his
personal story. But I give it credit, and I think
this is what you know, the books are meant to do,
(28:06):
is really to bring students to the course even more,
to help them understand it so they will want to
practice it. And I think that's so true for thousands,
if not at this point millions of people. I've heard
so many people who have used the book. So yeah,
I mean, I think it is just regular language. It
(28:28):
tells stories or very relatable as you know with Gary
is a very honest person and he used himself as
an example, and we saw a lot about his life,
and yet he had this experience of having these ascended masters,
these what he calls is his teachers show up to him,
(28:49):
show up for him in nineteen ninety two and stayed
with him and still to this day, as I understand,
still make appearances to him. So yeah, it's both fascinating.
There's that aspect, But then everything that they cover as
far as how we perceive the world and how much
(29:09):
we really make this world very real, it starts to
point the fact that really the world is an experience
and you are very much identified with an identity of
who you think you are here. Now, that's very true,
and I'm not trying to go too deep and too
(29:30):
woo woo, but when you look at it that way
and you start to take a step back and be like, yeah,
it is true, Like what am I? I think? I'm
this person named Selena who is now a woman living
in North America who had these set of experiences. Sure,
that's all true in the experience, Okay, in this level,
(29:50):
but is that who I really am? Who am I
really and do these set of experiences does my identity?
Does that define who I am? And so I think
spiritual students, what we are doing now is we're going deeper.
We're going deeper, especially in the state of what many
(30:11):
people across this world are experiencing today. They're realizing, oh gosh,
you know, we always look to leaders and for external
authority and what and we still do to some extent,
but I think more and more, especially in the last
several years, people are starting to turn inward and looking
(30:32):
for answers there. So I think I've gotten off track
a little bit. But Gary Reynard's book is the teachings
from his teachers, and all of his books are very
helpful to reiterate those right minded thoughts, to discuss what
forgiveness really is, and to help pointing the way that
what we're having. I mean, even a course in Miracles says,
(30:53):
you know, so many times the world is not real. Now,
that's really really hard. Okay, that's really hard. It's not
always you have it's not always seemingly kind to some
people who are like, wait, I'm not ready to hear that. Okay,
I certainly wasn't at some time. It took me a
while to get there, and I had a lot of
discomfort in the early early days to start understanding those principles.
(31:16):
But there are the Holy Spirit, as the course teaches us,
is this gentle, merciful helper that we are given to
lead us home to God. And every experience I have
with that is loving and kind. So even though there
might be pointers showing me that the world in my
(31:38):
identity is not what I think it is, it's always
in a loving, kind way.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
And so, you know, I find it really interesting you
and I kind of came to the course in the
same timeframe and a little bit of the same way.
I was listening two thousand and two, I heard an
interview of Tony Robbins interviewing doctor Wayne Dyer, and Wayne
Dyer mentioned a course in miracles. I go, what And
(32:05):
so I drove right over to Barnes and Noble and
bought a copy, brought it home, proceeded to put it
on my shelf and let it sit there for two
years before I even open it up. And then, you know,
going back to Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe,
I love you. You explained it. You nailed it, because
(32:27):
it's kind of like more plain language explaining what at
first seems very complicated when you're reading the course itself.
The text I call Gary's book the primer for before
reading a course in miracles. It helps you ease into
it a little bit more.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I had a feeling that
our stories were similar. When I read a little bit
about you and staying to go for I'm like, oh,
if it's staying almost long, But yeah, I agree. The
stories are very relatable, also very humorous, you know, also
just very quote unquote real in the way that you
know he's having a bad day, there's an experience like
(33:09):
I don't really like that person. His teachers would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay,
let's see what's going on there, right, And I think
that that helped all of us. And that's exactly what
the course is saying too. Okay. It speaks how many times,
thousands of times, how it mentions you know your salvation
is in your brother and how you look at your brother,
(33:32):
and that in itself is just such a beautiful teaching
to remember.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, we really are fortunate. I've had the good
fortune to go to a couple of workshops with Gary
and got to go to dinner with him and Cindy,
and it was just a blessing to have fun with it.
But going back to the course itself, you know, I
mean it's growing and growing all these years, fifty years now.
(33:58):
I would like to know where do you think A
Course in Miracles stands in the world? How many copies
have been sold since it was first published? How many
languages has it been translated into it? And what do
you think is the future of this book and its teachings.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Oh my gosh, Well, of course I can only tell
you what I think, mostly intuitively, where I think my
pulses that were the pulses on the course, and I'm
happy to do that. I can certainly tell you that
the course seems to be growing. Well, I don't have
exact numbers of how many that we've sold. It's got
to be upwards of four million, if not more, of
(34:38):
the version that the Foundation sells, so I can tell
you that. And then it's also we have twenty seven
current translations different languages of A Course in Miracles, and
we're working on three others this year, so by twenty
twenty six they'll be thirty translations. And yeah, what you know,
(35:03):
it's fifty years old. It seems like what I'm seeing
at least more and more from the standpoint of also
overseeing our permissions and licensing team is we're getting a
lot of people asking for different permissions on how to
use the course of that. Can you know, I use
these quotes, et cetera, et cetera, But I and I
(35:24):
think a sliver of how many people are actually talking
about the course of those requests are coming in. But
it's just a sliver I think of what is really
really happening. If you do a search, there's so many
people talking about a course in miracles now, and whether
that's on YouTube or blogs. I mean there's thousands upon
thousands of teachers and not only in English. And you know,
(35:47):
having now that I'm a part of the foundation and
very connected with people internationally and have done searches in
Spanish and other language, and there's a lot going on,
a lot going on, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
And some people only even have a whole podcasts about
a course in mer But what amazing is since fifty
years since the two professors from Columbia and Ken Wapnik
and Judas Scotch moved to California, and I believe it's
based in Mill Valley California now in the Bay Area.
How far it's come in a beautiful, beautiful influence and
(36:24):
change in the world, and now you're part of it.
Thank you, thank you for doing what you do.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Oh my gosh, it's my pleasure. Yes and yes, the
headquarters of Foundations for Inner Peace is no longer a
Mill Valley address. It's a Nevada address. But we are
still in the Bay Area.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, you know there is. And this is one of
the first lines of the course that really stuck with me.
There's a beautiful line in the course right at the
front of the book that says, nothing real can be threatened,
nothing on reel exist. Here in lies the peace of God.
(37:02):
I think the very first time I read that line,
I don't think I really understood what it means. So
what exactly does this line mean to each and every
one of us who's experience life in this body.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yeah, nothing real can be threatened, nothing and real exists.
Here in lies the peace of God. So something I'd
like to share that I know some spiritual students have
had an experience with I call it revelation. Some have not,
But I will say in I will speak to it
(37:37):
from my experience of having a revelation. And so this
was many years ago. Is actually before I was a
core student. I had a set of mystical experiences that
I think now I look back on it and I
see how these experiences have propelled me down a spiritual
path even more more to find like the answers of
(37:58):
the exactly happen. When I was about seventeen years old,
I was going through a difficult time and just you know,
being a teenager it's tough anyway. There's a lot of things,
and you're growing, You're trying to understand the world around you.
There's more pressure from society whatever at the time, I
think with work and trying to do well to get
(38:20):
into college, et cetera, et cetera. But I remember going
through a very dark period and I didn't really understand
what it was. You know, I wouldn't. I would not
have called it depression at the time, even though I'm
sure if I went to see a practitioner or a
clinician about it, I would have been diagnosed with that.
(38:41):
But it was such a difficult time that it brought
me to a place where I kept getting sinking, going deeper, deeper, darker, darker,
over the course of a few months. And then one
day something happened where I didn't get a turn in
some homework and different things, and I remember, all of
(39:05):
a sudden, something gently switched. It shifted in my perception.
And then I will say, almost all of a sudden
this it was almost like I had one foot in
this world and one foot in another realm. But this experience,
it's a very I call it revelation, and a course
talks about this, so I hope people look this up
(39:26):
if they're unfamiliar with it. But it's a very direct experience.
It's a very personal experience that you have with God,
is what the course will say. And it's a temporary
suspension of space and time, which exactly what it was
for me. But what I experienced in that time, and
it was again I was feeling very very low my
(39:47):
worldly identity. Okay. It was so bad that I was like,
I don't even want to be here anymore, sort of
like that, okay, And I remember being in class and
it shifted so much that I had this experience of
truly perfect love, true perfect love, nothing real can be threatened,
(40:08):
nothing unreal exists. Here in lies a peace of God.
It was if they believe the Bible talks of a
peace that passes all understanding. It was that it was
all I can use is it's almost and I think,
of course, even talks about you can't it's ineffable, like
(40:29):
you can't really even talk about it because it's such
a personal experience. There aren't any words to properly describe this.
But all I can do is point the way to
say that it was absolute, perfect peace. It was the
most love I had ever felt in my life. With
all the relationships and support that I have had in
(40:50):
this world, especially at that time growing up, it was nothing,
nothing like the love I have experienced in this world
in my interpersonal relationships. And it was showing me very
gently that there's you're already whole, and you're already perfect,
and this what you're experiencing is nothing at all that
(41:16):
in itself. I love that that quote that you said
is at the beginning of a course in miracles, because
for me and my experience propelling me down the spiritual path,
even though I found the course it was many years later,
that was it really for the beginning for me. You know,
I think so many people we often come to a
place of discomfort and suffering for us to go deeper. Okay,
(41:41):
And for whatever reason in my mind at that time,
I felt like I sort of took a step out
of this worldly identity, not by myself, with help, and
just for a few moments. It probably lasted a few minutes.
It was the most ultimate, perfect, beautiful experience, and that
I know now. Didn't know this until I started studying
(42:04):
a course of miracles, But that in itself was what
the course described as revelation. And that is the best
way I can describe what that quote means.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Well, you know, I haven't personally had any real dramatic,
you know, spiritual being in the moment of pure love. Now,
I will say as a student, when I do touch
more into that place of aligning perfectly with my source
and the unity of all that is, isn't it beautiful?
(42:39):
How when you get in that place of pure love,
peace also comes with it. As soon as I am
in that realm, I immediately feel much more peaceful. I
love that.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yes, No, you're absolutely right, And you know the course
close to the beginning of the text it will speak
about you know, all you need is a little willingness
as you hear a lot of people say, you just
need a little willingness, and I think it is just
that being able to want it, to have the little
willingness to shift, and to be able to see things differently,
(43:13):
to ask the Holy Spirit, to ask Jesus to look
at the world or the script with you holding Jesus's hand,
That in itself what is immediately transformative for me. Okay,
and sometimes for really big things you just need to
practice on it. But you can almost immediately feel that
(43:34):
that shift, and I love that. It's like it's just
really like you said, it's like having that willingness going
there and feeling immediately better now. Of course, later in
the course, in the manual for teachers, it does talk
about you need to have an abundant amount of willingness,
and I think there's truth to that as well. Because
it takes we do this course over a period of years,
(43:57):
you can certainly do it very well for the rest
of one's days here on earth. And it takes a
commitment to be uncompromising to this practice that that comes
in time.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, yeah, commitment. I've been reading a lot about consistency too,
which is important when you're aligning with back home with
your higher self. Well, Selena, as you already found out,
I have this tendency to ask really large questions. So
I'm going to shift gears again here. Let's discuss the ego. Many,
(44:34):
many modern psychologists say that your ego is your friend.
Well that's not exactly how the course looks at the ego.
As a matter of fact, it says the ego is
not your friend. Right, what are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
You know I would have I totally understand both sides.
But what the course brings our attention to is, no,
the ego is not your friend. The ego is trying
to I'm that pretty clearly in chapter nine, so it's
definitely worth a reread. What I would say is, first
(45:13):
of all, that has been really helpful for me. That
has been helpful for me because it really gives me
a framework on what it is I'm doing when I
am employing the thought system of the ego. The egos
thought system is one that's divisive, okay. It's one that
(45:35):
puts makes you a victim. It puts everything outside of yourself.
It takes the guilt in the mind and projects it
onto your brother. It will do anything to try to
keep you feeling safe. Okay. So even modern psychology, we'll
talk to about the ego about that, like there's benefits
(45:57):
to it. It tries to keep us safe, okay, But a course,
and Jesus is teaching us to go deeper, okay, and
to really and again this is the practice of the mind.
I'm not saying we have to take any outright action
unless we're inspired to do so, but really to go
in and understand that when we are looking and thinking
(46:19):
of things with the ego, and that's by ourself. So
there's a caveat to this only with the ego. I mean,
it's really for the purposes of destroying and keeping the
guilt away from your mind. So you think you seemingly
feel better, but what's really happening is you have the guilt.
(46:41):
You're not looking at it with the Holy Spirit. It's
not being transformed, but projecting it outward on your brother
without doing the inner work. Just keep reinforces the dream experience, okay,
and it just keeps reinforces the so called emotion energy
in more sore over the guilt in your mind. Okay,
(47:03):
that shifts happening. Now people can easily say this somebody, Oh,
the ego. It's such a bad thing. I need to
hate the ego. And I'm not saying do that either,
because that in itself is a trick. The ego would
love for you to hate. But the beautiful thing about
(47:23):
this practice is the Holy Spirit uses the ego to
undo the ego. So we're not saying just be normal
in your life. You know, we're not saying act holier
than now. We're not saying do spiritual bypassing. What the
(47:44):
Holy Spirit is asking us to do is to look
at whatever is coming up in the mind. You don't
even have to say anything to anyone, but look what's
coming up in the mind and see it with love,
see it in pure awareness. If it helps for you,
that image a lot of course students, and I think
it was doctor Kenneth Wapnik who brought this stuff like
(48:06):
hold Jesus's hand and watch it on the movie screen.
I love that particular practice for myself. But the Holy
Spirit uses the ego to under the ego. So we
look at the ego with help. We do it with help.
We don't try to undo it ourselves. It won't work. Okay,
we're too much into its thought. System because we really
(48:28):
deeply out of our awareness, we are very very identified
with it. There is so much pain and guilt so
deep on a out it's you know, are subconscious that
if we weren't able to do this gently easily with
help from God Holy Spirit, then it would be very difficult.
(48:52):
It would be you know, impossible without their help. But
it's just a gentle process in this dream experience.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Well, thank you for that explanation, because that's not an
easy topic. I think people who aren't sure, well, who's
talking to me? The ego or God? And we know
that the ego will always speak first and the loudest,
with the most urgency, whereas God or Source will will
(49:21):
always gently speak to you and quietly. I've found myself
it's almost like when I know Source is talking to me,
I'm just like a tap on the shoulder. Hey remember
doing this? You know? And yeah, And I found that
there are even times where I'm sitting there and i
know I'm feeling very close to Source, all of a sudden,
(49:44):
this voice will come on you stupid, what are you doing?
I just said, WHOA, I know who's talking to me? There?
Speaker 4 (49:50):
Yeah, No, it's it's true. And you know earlier you
asked me how I felt talking about some of the
slow burns or forgiveness opportunity, and that we had mentioned
my divorce. But just for practical application that my help
viewers understand better is, you know, use what comes up
(50:11):
in your life now. For me, in that experience, that
was kind of a big thing. But I had been
studying the course for four years. Apparently Jesus spot I
was ready for some real rubber meats road application, and
you know what, I was certainly willing when it happened.
And without going too much to the details, people can
listen to that Miracle Voices podcast if they would like
(50:33):
to know more. But you know, when you're going through
something where you feel like you've been betrayed, someone has
done you so wrong, and not only that, but then
you find yourself, oh, I'm losing my house, my community,
all of these things are changing and almost compounds experience
(50:55):
like it was kind of a big thing. But I
remember that when it happened, I immediately and I realized
what was happening in front of me. I immediately went
into another room and fell on my knees and I said,
you'd be in charge. You show me how to do this.
(51:17):
You show me how to look at this, and the
way that you would want you show me, because I
knew theoretically that nobody's really out there, nothing has really happened. Okay,
it's like all done. I knew as a course student,
(51:37):
even in the early days, that this was all a
presentation of a grand projection being played out in front
of me in my experience, okay, And it was very
easy to take all the pain and be like, you
did this, you did this, and you know, from the
level of the world, there were a lot of things
(51:58):
that had occurred during that time that you could say, oh,
you know, it does seem that she was really victimized there,
but I knew to go deeper, and so all these
things that we've been talking about. When it happens, you
ask for help to look at it differently and and
you understand the thoughts something that we've already explained here,
(52:21):
but you just keep vigilant at it, and especially with
the big burns, you'd have to be give yourself grace.
You have to know that because we are in a
dream of time and space, it's going to probably take
some time and things will come up and then you
forgive it and it'll come up again, and sometimes it
seems like endless. But you know, the course also says
(52:43):
you don't know what anything is for, and so I
can only imagine, and I have to trust the guidance
the teacher that was given to me knows what they're doing,
that I am applying the practice, and that great shifts
of transformation are occurring within the mind the Son of God.
And this is my part in the projection that I
(53:07):
was given to apply these principles because there's only truly
one of us, even though the world now appears to
have eight billion people, and the universe and beyond I'm
sure has infinite number of beings. But let me look
at how big the script can appear to be when
a course in Miracles tells us there's only the one
(53:27):
Son of God and you're it.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Wow. Well, we are speaking to Selena Granado, the chief
communications officer for the Foundation for Inner Peace, the publisher
of the Course in Miracles. We're gonna wind up with
the last couple minutes here, and thank you Selena. You
know many of my guests here on this show over
the last seven years i've been doing it, have said
(53:52):
that humanity is on the cusp of a dramatic transformation
into an age of enlightenment and awakening. What do you
think about this?
Speaker 4 (54:04):
You know, I of course feel that there is something
that happen, and I would think so too. You know,
if anybody who is involved in metaphysics are on the
spiritual path, and you know, some of us go really
deep and like the symbolism and the woo ness, and
(54:25):
they have followed the harmonic convergence of eighty seven, and
then in twenty twelve, you know, it's like, what is it.
It's now the age of Aquarius and the end of
the mind calendar. I mean, you can go down those
paths and they can really you know, I don't think
I like them. They're interesting, but I don't give them
too much thought because they could also be a distraction.
(54:48):
But it does seem at least, you know, from my experience,
seeing how many people are on a spiritual path. And
it's not just a course in miracles, but there's a
lot more teachers non dualistics, some not. But it does
seem like there is an explosion of people that are
(55:08):
again more spiritual and not religious, not dogma involved. People
who are willing to look inside, go inside, ask these
questions about themselves. It seems that collective consciousness, I will say,
has been raising and you know, and that would mean
for the individual that they're willing to ask harder questions,
(55:29):
you know, more productive questions or will people are wanting
to take responsibility in their life. They're no longer we're
longer looking at external structures or governments, or political control
or religions to help guide themselves. Theyre going within. And
I think we're seeing this in every direction, no matter
whether you're a core student or what type of spiritual
(55:51):
students that you are, and whatever level you're at, I
think we're seeing that. So I fully answered that question, but.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
Not eight Selena, I really appreciate you being on here.
I think we could probably do another eighty seven episodes.
We're gonna have to make it the Selena and Carl Show.
But you know, we have to have to head out here.
But can you please tell us how people can contact
(56:20):
support and find out more about a course in miracles
and its publisher and the keeper of the founder found
a dation for inner peace.
Speaker 4 (56:29):
Absolutely, thank you for asking. So the foundation for inner peace,
of course, is we are the original scribe authorized publisher
of A Course in Miracles. We're celebrating our fiftieth anniversary
this year of courses, fiftieth anniversary of the first printing
in nineteen seventy five. I should say, but you can
find us, and I think one of the best ways
(56:50):
right now and it's easy is ACIM dot org. Acim
dot org A Course Inmiracles dot org is our internet address,
and from there you can certainly sign up on our newsletter.
We are a foundation that works and that depends on donations,
(57:13):
so there's a way to donate as well. We do
have a lot of information about our history our translators,
but we are still printing a Course in Miracles, and
we're also expanding it not only in other languages like
I talked earlier, but in digital products as well. And
we always make space for these types of communications discussions
(57:33):
with our own webinar series, which we have one at
least once a month. So learn more about us there
at acim dot org, and we're on online on all
the social media channels do and.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
I have to say that aacim dot org is a
beautiful website. I utilize it all the time, and a
great way to check it out. Selena Granado, thank you.
What a beautiful opportunity you have you on World Awakenings.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (58:02):
So happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
This has been another episode of World Awakenings, The Fast
Track to Enlightenment with host Carl Gruber, a certified law
of attraction life coach. We welcome you to tune in
to each and every episode of World Awakenings as we
open your mind, your heart, and your eyes to the
fact that the world's population is now more than ever
(58:40):
awakening to the truth of all things spiritual, metaphysical and enlightening,
and just how much they play an all important role
in our moment to moment daily life. Much love and
light to you, my friend, and thank you for tuning
into World Awakening.
This is World Awakenings, the fast Track to Enlightenment with
your host Carl Gruber. World Awakenings is a podcast dedicated
to opening your mind, your heart, and your eyes to
the fact that the world's population is now more than ever,
awakening to all things spiritual, metaphysical, and enlightening and just
(00:27):
how they play an all important role in our daily life.
So join Carl on this enlightening experience as he interviews
metaphysical and spiritual experts to discuss, debate, and delve deeply
into the house and whis of this world wide awakening.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome once again to our health report with the Wizard
of Wellness, doctor Glenn Swardout. Doctor Glenn is a naturopathic
healer from Hawaii, and this is the segment of World
Awakenings where we ask him to suggest a natural remedy
for a health question you'd like to know the answer to. Unfortunately,
(01:13):
doctor swort Out, way too many people in the world
suffer from something called chronic inflammation. What is chronic inflammation
and what natural remedy do you suggest.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
The chronic inflammation In modern medicine, we kind of have
the idea that it's it's the boogeyman. It is a
bad thing, and it's at the root of many most
of our chronic degenerative diseases. So yeah, it has very
bad effects. But we need to look a little deeper
to understand why do we have that inflammation, Where's it
(01:47):
come from, How does the body produce inflammation, what is
the body trying to do to heal itself, and why
does it get stuck in that mode of trying rather
than having maybe acute inflammation being done with it and
moving on to other phases of healing of repair, regeneration.
So inflammation is like a fire burning, right, It's it's
(02:10):
it's like heat like fire, and so it's what is
it trying to burn off? It's trying to burn off
what doesn't belong in the body, toxins, pathogens, whatever is there,
it's not supposed.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
To be there.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
How do we move it out?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, we need to.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
We need to have heat or energy to dissolve what's there.
If it's deposited, we've got to dissolve it. That takes energy,
and we want to expand the tissue, bringing more fluid
to dissolve it as well to move it through. So
we have the classic symptoms of heat and swelling, redness, pain,
(02:45):
Those all go along in various degrees with inflammation. So
what is it that in our body that produces inflammation. Well,
it's not the it's not the virus that actually makes
the inflammation. It's not the top that makes the inflammation.
Typically it's the immune system's response to that foreign invader.
(03:07):
So the immune system is pro inflammatory. What's in the
body always has something to balance it out, right, what's
the anti inflammatory part, Well, that would be the adrenals.
So the thyme is and the adrenals part to parts
of the hormonal communication system of the body. And if
we are in a state where we're toxic and we're
(03:29):
trying to clean that out and the immune system doesn't
have enough power, enough strength to clean it out efficiently
get it done, then it's maybe stuck in that state
of trying to cleanse, trying to cleanse, trying to cleanse.
So inflammation, inflammation, inflammation, day after day, and that's where
we have damage from that inflammation that doesn't ever get
to the healing phase of repair and regeneration. Given a
(03:53):
quick example, if you have a headache, that's there's inflammation, right,
and you take an aspirin. We're talked to take an aspirin,
and we know that that takes down the inflammation. Inflammation
is acidic and the tissue to dissolve, and acid will
dissolve things. When there's not, inflammation goes to the alkaline side.
So what does aspirin do. It alkalizes the tissue, so
(04:14):
it reduces the inflammation kind of like the adrenals would,
but it overalkalizes it. Now you have aspirin plus the
toxins or foreign bodies that were in there, and the
immune system is stuck having to clean out even more.
And this research shows you'll have more headaches in the
future if you take an aspirin to resolve it now.
So the real solution is how do we help the
(04:36):
immune system to get the job done not have to
work so hard or so long. And that's where even
having a fever, a flu, a cold once or twice
a year is actually preventive. Prevents helps prevent cancer because
it's cleaning out if you have a stomach flu, it's
(04:57):
not just cleaning out the virus that we think of,
Oh that's the trigger, Yeah, okay, that's the trigger, and
the immune system is creating the flu symptoms and it's
cleaning out everything in that tissue, all build up of
toxins from the past year.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
If you have a particular health question you would like
to ask doctor Glenn and would like to know what
is the best natural remedy to use instead of toxic pharmaceuticals,
you can email me your question at Kwgruber at yahoo
dot com and you can go to his website, remedymatch
(05:32):
dot com to purchase one of doctor sward Out's products.
As a listener of World Awakenings, make sure to use
the discount code awake. That's all capital letters awake to
receive your ten percent off discount. Hey, welcome once again,
(06:06):
my friends, to another awesome episode of World Awakenings, a
fast Track to Enlightenment. I'm your host, Carl Gruber. I
absolutely love it when this show stays in line with
the beautiful teachings of the modern spiritual guide called a
Course in Miracles, and this is one of those shows. Now,
if you desire to seek your hire and more loving self,
(06:27):
you're in the right place. Before we meet our guest,
I'm proud to tell you, however, that this show, after
seven years in production, has been selected by feedspot dot
com as the number two of the top twenty metaphysical
podcasts in the world. Woo who so I appreciate it.
Thank you friends. Also, you can now not only watch
(06:49):
this show on YouTube, but you can also watch it
on your home TV on the new TV network New
Reality TV. Just scan the QR code you see on
the scare and check it out. So thank you for that. Well,
let's meet our guest today of Selena Granado. From a
young age, she wanted to understand the nature of reality,
(07:12):
and by her mid twenties she had explored various paths
in search of genuine peace when she was introduced to
a course in Miracles, which became her primary spiritual practice,
guiding her through life's challenges by focusing on a thought
system of true forgiveness. Originally from the American Midwest and
raised in Sault of the Earth community with a multicultural upbringing,
(07:36):
I like that. Selena sees interpersonal relationships as some of
the greatest opportunities for doing inner work. Now a student
of the course for over twenty years, she understands that
the course is a self studied practice for the mind
and being uncompromising to the principles of the course leads
(07:56):
to genuine spiritual growth. Here Here is currently the chief
International and Communications Officer at the Foundation for Inner Peace,
the official publisher of a course in Miracles. That is
so cool, Selina, thank you for being on World Awakenings.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Hey, Carl, thanks so much for having me. I'm so
happy to be here with you. That's going to be
a fun conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, you know, as you can tell, I am, I'm
just over the moon when I can talk about the
course as I know you are. Anything we can do
to help us spread the truth and the beauty of it.
But you know, before we dive into your life and
things about you, I'm so grateful, like I said, to
have you on the show, since we're both dedicated students
(08:42):
of the course. Before you find out more about you
your path to finding and studying the course, would you
care to give us a short explanation of just how
the course came into being and what it's all about.
I know that's kind of a big ask about if
you could do that.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
And it's a big ask, but I'll try my best
here for those who don't know, I'm sure a lot
of students do know, but I'll do a like eye
level overview. So the chorus actually here as we're recording
and talking. It's twenty twenty five. It's been in print
now for fifty years, so that's when the first publishing,
the first printings happened. But about ten years before that
(09:19):
is really when it began by two Colombian psychologists, doctors
Helen Schuckman and William Thetford, came together through a shared
decision at Columbia University that there's got to be a
better way. There was a lot of conflict and strife
in their relationship and also relationships within the department they
(09:43):
had worked together. They were both brilliant minds and very
dedicated to their work and their patients and their practice
and their expertise of psychology. But it was right around
nineteen sixty five. I think that Helen started hearing a
voice around October of sixty five, as I recall, and
(10:05):
this voice came. It was sort of an It was
an inner voice that came to her that was very clear,
and she heard it. She listened to what it was saying.
She didn't like it very much how it was happening.
But this voice came after a series of dreams. She
(10:26):
had been having that summer, and also after she and
Bill had made the decision there's got to be a
better way. He said that there's got to be a
better way than what they were experiencing. And she said, yes, Bill,
and I'm here to help you find it. So there
was first that decision, that committment there, and then things
began to unravel. So months later, as a voice courage,
(10:48):
she wasn't very happy about it, and she came she said, oh,
this has been happening to me. What is it I
need to do? I'm not okay with us at all.
And Bill said something really gently to her, something like,
you know, why don't you come to the office tomorrow.
Let's take a look. Why don't you write down what
it's saying. Let me take a look at these your writings,
and you know what, if it's just a bunch of gibberish,
(11:10):
we throw it away and nothing will nobody will ever know.
And if you know, you write something down, let's just
look at it together. So that's exactly what she did.
She took her stone books and wrote down exactly what
she was getting from this inner guidance, this inner voice.
And they came to build the next day, and it
(11:31):
was like, Wow, there is really something here, something here
worth learning, something here worth that's showing us that there's
got to be a better way of looking at relationships,
looking at what this experience is. And that's sort of
how the course was born. Now, not right away, it
(11:52):
happened in about It took about I think sixty five
to seventy three. You know, Helen was probably working out
a little little bit of i'll say bugs, like really
learning to practice hearing the voice. But it was she
through a period of seven years. She and Bill, and
we consider Bill a coscribe as well, even though the
(12:13):
voice came through Helen, they coscribed a course in miracles.
This is a course in miracles, please take note. And
she wrote it down. And so this was for about
a period of seven years. Okay, so along that time
a few years later, that's when most course students are
familiar with the names doctor uh, doctor Ken, sorry Ken,
(12:40):
and Judish Sketch whitson. And when they came into the picture.
Ken was also a psychologist and helped with a lot
of the finalization of the publishing and started putting Roman
numerals and putting things in their place, and then it
was Judith's sketch whitson, who's our founder here at the
(13:03):
or one of the co founders of the Foundation for
Inner Peace, and she was the one to with the
four of them together decided that they would begin to
publish this and share it with the world. And that
was about nineteen seventy five, so about ten years after
the inception of the writing. And yeah, so that's really
(13:26):
how it began as far as the form it took.
But what it's saying is something much deeper, and it
is really an essence, a document, a teaching that is
meant to be a self study that is about forgiveness,
and not forgiveness is generally how the world has historically
or traditionally thought about forgiveness, but forgiveness in a way
(13:50):
to where it is about looking within yourself. It is
about it's an inner work. It is about getting in
connect with God. It's about pure awareness understanding that love
in God is God is the only reality, and God
(14:10):
is love, which is pure awareness. And so this idea
of forgiveness is really understanding that the experience we have
are having is just that an experience, and that our
true real essence, our natural inheritance is that we're really love,
We're really at home. It's safe with God. Now that's
(14:31):
really deep. That's really deep, because everything about in our
experience in the world is telling us often something differently
okay about being out in the world, and not always,
but often has been our experience in this world. So
this course is really a course in miracles. It's not
(14:52):
just the course is not the only past path, but
it is a course that points the way to looking
inside again and looking at what can come up in
the mind and seeing it with the Holy Spirit. So
much in the same way that Helen and Bill said,
(15:13):
there's got to be a better way. Most of the
people come to the course on the spiritual path at
some point have realized, Okay, there has got to be
a better way to believe, think, live this life, start
to overlook all of these pains and sufferings I've been experiencing.
(15:34):
So yeah, So it is a path home, and from
my personal experience I've been to see over twenty years,
as you said, but I see it as a non dualistic,
purely non dualistic path, which for me means that there
is no compromise, There is only God in reality, God
is the only reality and that is our true oneness
(15:59):
experience and that's it ultimately is leading us and that's deep.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So while the words that changed the world, there has
got to be a better way and we all ask that.
But thank you for that explanation. It was a big ask.
If I had to do it, I'd be stumbling and
bumbling around for seven hours. So but beautiful, Yes, that
is that is the what a course is all about.
(16:26):
Now let's let's go to you. Now you already mentioned forgiveness,
and my understanding is that your journey to coming to
the UH of course in miracles involves some forgiveness. And yeah,
quite a story of your own dealing with with a divorce,
I believe. Is that something you care to talk about?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Oh? Sure, sure, I know what you're talking about. I
did a podcast about a little over a year ago
about on Miracle Voices and share forgiveness story, and I
chose that because that's particular story on forgiveness because well,
in my life experience, it was a big deal. It
was a huge life event and it really had a
(17:07):
lot to do with changing not only things were happening
externally in the script in the world, but really it
was my first big opportunity a slow burn as a
lot of course students like to say of really applying
the principles of forgiveness. So there's certainly that's probably been
one of my biggest lessons. But there's all. I mean,
(17:31):
there's lots of things, you know, you can talk about
relationships and anxiety and different things that have come up
for me in the world. So you can pick your
poison there. We can go a lot of different directions
with us, but I'm happy to talk about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So well, and you know, I do believe we all
have our own forgiveness lessons, Yes, for sure, I mean
we all do. But you know, I'm curious if there
is one aspect of the course's teachings that you would
want anyone who studies it take to take away and
integrate it into their life. What would that be?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Oh goodness, So one aspect of the course is teaching
is to integrate in your life. So first of all,
I would say, it's really truly an understanding of what
the course is saying in practicing, so that if I
were to answer that question, it would be to practice
(18:28):
what the course is saying. You know, I used all
these lofty words to describe it at the beginning, But
really a course in miracles is really a thought system.
It's a practice. The course itself says, I am a
self study teaching. It's a self studied teaching Jesus. And
the course says that that doesn't mean you can't go
(18:50):
out and you can't have discussion and be a discussion
group and the discussion with others. Absolutely, we'd have a
lot of discussion at the foundation, so you can certainly
do that, But it really is about going within and
practicing this thought system of forgiveness. That would be the
one thing I would like to bring up. And so
what does that mean. It's really, I think a simple process.
(19:15):
Now that I've been studying twenty years, I can say
it's simple. As far as the steps is it always easy? Still, No,
there's some resistance there. But what I would say is
you go inside and then anything you've become aware. You
are just aware of what's coming up in your mind.
So as something comes up and I'll say, I like
(19:36):
to say, knocks you off of your piece, Okay, that's
a great way to start, and you don't have to
start with like the really big stuff but like the
little things that come up, you can start saying, oh
I see this. Okay, I'm experiencing this, but let me now,
I'm willing to see this differently and you watch it
(19:59):
with the Holy Spirit. And what does that mean? Watch it?
You allow it? You allow it. And I'm using the
word the words a lot more now in pure love.
This is what I'm understanding this watching to be. It's
really pure awareness. This is what love is. So you're
(20:19):
willing to look at it differently fully love it by
being in your pure awareness.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Well that's beautiful explanation. I think. Recently I've been studying
the text where let's see, it's the lessons of the
Holy Spirit, and one that I've really been trying to practice.
I'm still trying to get consistent with is be vigilant
only for God and his Kingdom. And I have found
(20:52):
that as I practice that on a moment to moment
basis through my day, everything just seems to flow right
along and be in a chord in alignment with a happy, joyful,
peaceful life. Unfortunately, you know, I am not as consistent
as I should be. But now that I understand that,
(21:15):
I tick myself in the butt come home, get back there.
And as soon as I do, as soon as I
get out of a chord and I'm not being vigilant,
things get weird. But when I am consistently vigilant about it,
like I said, everything gets back in alignment.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Yeah, isn't that true? And with practice, like practice makes progress.
And so what I am realizing is like you first
you become aware, and then you kind of become more
aware in a way. It's like you're awareness enhances. Sometimes
I even get to the point where I could almost
(21:52):
see myself having the experience. Now it's not like some
sort of out of body thing, but I could almost
see myself from the part of mind. So if the mind,
let's say the mind is split, we have this section
of the mind that likes to run off of the
ego operating system and see things as unfair and victimize
what we think is our identity and all the different
(22:15):
things that most all of us experience here in the
human world. Right, So we have that part, and then
there is the part that once you practice with seeing
things in love, seeing things with your right mind, seeing
things with the Holy Spirit, it seems like that part
you just become a little bit more attuned to that
(22:35):
right and sometimes because the ego thought system has a tendency,
it really wants to get your attention. It usually it
speaks loudest, it speaks first. You know, a lot of
my practice, especially in the early days, Okay, now what
is this? Where is this coming from? I'd have to
take a step back to really look what's coming from.
But I'm also starting to see that when we're vigilant
(22:57):
and we're operating from the right mind, it is you know,
it's a peaceful, loving feeling and it's a kind feeling.
So the more I get that, the more I practice.
But I also see, okay, the more I have to
practice because I'm like, wait a second, is this truly
(23:17):
peaceful and kind? Want to feel like? Okay, let me
take a step back. So, yes, it's definitely back and forth.
And I think that's one of the biggest things. Isn't
it like to be vigilant? That's really a central tenet
of the course. It's asking us, is too, okay, be mindful.
Look how are you looking at this experience in front
(23:39):
of you?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, And it's a great reminder. So we are talking
to Selena Grenado, the chief communications officer for the publisher
of a course a Miracle is a Foundation for Inner Peace,
which is very cool. Now, my listeners, you know this
is episode number two hundred and six. No, then, I
have had one of the most famous teachers of a
(24:02):
course in Miracles on this show, Gary Renard, at least
three times. I've had his wife on. But I think
it's very appropriate that maybe we need to discuss how
Gary Renard's ground bait breaking book The Disappearance of the
Universe is an important stepping stone to help people to
understand more clearly exactly what the course is all about
(24:23):
and how to understand it more easily. I know many
people because much of it is written in Iambic pentameter,
and even Gary told me once he first started reading, goes,
what the hell is this? This is Gary? You know
what's what? Would you say is a good route to
read that book? Is that a good idea for a
(24:44):
new student? You know?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Will? I have to largely speak from my perspective, and
I know my direct experience is not one that's representative
of Foundation for Interpeace, so I should I should say that,
but I will tell you in my experience and when
I first started with the Course in Miracles. I really
give Gary, and even Cindy. I've followed so much of
(25:06):
her in the last few years too, But Gary's book
twenty years ago a little more than twenty now, has
really been instrumental in helping to understand it was for
me and helping to understand a course of miracles. So
many students either I've met in person or I have
heard over the years, have said the same thing, and
I'm really sort of struck by how much the stories
(25:29):
have been the same. And maybe it's been that way
for you too, Carl, But I mean, I think you've
been studying it a little even longer than myself. But
I remember coming into it like around two thousand and
one is probably where for me individually, I had another
like I don't know how to really say this, but
there was a shift that happened in the mind that
(25:53):
helped open me up to even a little bit deeper
of a spiritual path, Okay, And it was not one
It was not long after this that had occurred for
me that as when I first actually heard about a
course in Miracles. Now, of Course in Miracles has been
published in seventy five, and a lot of people have
been studying it since seventies and eighties. But I was
deepening and going down the spiritual path, and then that
(26:15):
came up to me around a one and I immediately
felt drawn to it. I immediately felt drawn to this.
Oh I want to know more. And you know, the
internet was really unsophisticated back then, and so I would,
you know, peruse the internet and try to find things.
And then I didn't even buy the book. And then
(26:36):
in three there was an on who came and she
had gone to a Unity church in Florida and said,
you know, I was given to these books. I felt
very drawn to giving one to you. I looked at it. It
was a course in miracles. I said, oh, my gosh,
I've been so interested in this. I have not gotten
the book yet. That thank you so much. And I
remember being feeling so delighted in that, and then going in,
(26:59):
opening up, trying to read it, and then I was like,
oh goodness, just like you said with the Iambic pentameter,
it has a Shakespearean sort of prose. I mean, it was,
you know, it is written in a much different way
than we are that we speak here in our modern world.
(27:22):
And so I was like, oh, my goodness, and then
some of the like double negatives, the butts and you know,
which really means not. I was like, okay, this is
this is really hard for me to get my mind around.
And I close the book and I put it in
my bookshelf, still drawn to it, but I'm thinking, okay,
I don't know, I'm quite ready. But it wasn't two
thousand and five that another colleague had given me that
(27:44):
book that Disappears in the Universe by Gary, and that
really it was pivotal moment for me. Not only do
I love all of Gary's books, and I found that
so I opening and it really drew me in his
personal story. But I give it credit, and I think
this is what you know, the books are meant to do,
(28:06):
is really to bring students to the course even more,
to help them understand it so they will want to
practice it. And I think that's so true for thousands,
if not at this point millions of people. I've heard
so many people who have used the book. So yeah,
I mean, I think it is just regular language. It
(28:28):
tells stories or very relatable as you know with Gary
is a very honest person and he used himself as
an example, and we saw a lot about his life,
and yet he had this experience of having these ascended masters,
these what he calls is his teachers show up to him,
(28:49):
show up for him in nineteen ninety two and stayed
with him and still to this day, as I understand,
still make appearances to him. So yeah, it's both fascinating.
There's that aspect, But then everything that they cover as
far as how we perceive the world and how much
(29:09):
we really make this world very real, it starts to
point the fact that really the world is an experience
and you are very much identified with an identity of
who you think you are here. Now, that's very true,
and I'm not trying to go too deep and too
(29:30):
woo woo, but when you look at it that way
and you start to take a step back and be like, yeah,
it is true, Like what am I? I think? I'm
this person named Selena who is now a woman living
in North America who had these set of experiences. Sure,
that's all true in the experience, Okay, in this level,
(29:50):
but is that who I really am? Who am I
really and do these set of experiences does my identity?
Does that define who I am? And so I think
spiritual students, what we are doing now is we're going deeper.
We're going deeper, especially in the state of what many
(30:11):
people across this world are experiencing today. They're realizing, oh gosh,
you know, we always look to leaders and for external
authority and what and we still do to some extent,
but I think more and more, especially in the last
several years, people are starting to turn inward and looking
(30:32):
for answers there. So I think I've gotten off track
a little bit. But Gary Reynard's book is the teachings
from his teachers, and all of his books are very
helpful to reiterate those right minded thoughts, to discuss what
forgiveness really is, and to help pointing the way that
what we're having. I mean, even a course in Miracles says,
(30:53):
you know, so many times the world is not real. Now,
that's really really hard. Okay, that's really hard. It's not
always you have it's not always seemingly kind to some
people who are like, wait, I'm not ready to hear that. Okay,
I certainly wasn't at some time. It took me a
while to get there, and I had a lot of
discomfort in the early early days to start understanding those principles.
(31:16):
But there are the Holy Spirit, as the course teaches us,
is this gentle, merciful helper that we are given to
lead us home to God. And every experience I have
with that is loving and kind. So even though there
might be pointers showing me that the world in my
(31:38):
identity is not what I think it is, it's always
in a loving, kind way.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
And so, you know, I find it really interesting you
and I kind of came to the course in the
same timeframe and a little bit of the same way.
I was listening two thousand and two, I heard an
interview of Tony Robbins interviewing doctor Wayne Dyer, and Wayne
Dyer mentioned a course in miracles. I go, what And
(32:05):
so I drove right over to Barnes and Noble and
bought a copy, brought it home, proceeded to put it
on my shelf and let it sit there for two
years before I even open it up. And then, you know,
going back to Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe,
I love you. You explained it. You nailed it, because
(32:27):
it's kind of like more plain language explaining what at
first seems very complicated when you're reading the course itself.
The text I call Gary's book the primer for before
reading a course in miracles. It helps you ease into
it a little bit more.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I had a feeling that
our stories were similar. When I read a little bit
about you and staying to go for I'm like, oh,
if it's staying almost long, But yeah, I agree. The
stories are very relatable, also very humorous, you know, also
just very quote unquote real in the way that you
know he's having a bad day, there's an experience like
(33:09):
I don't really like that person. His teachers would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay,
let's see what's going on there, right, And I think
that that helped all of us. And that's exactly what
the course is saying too. Okay. It speaks how many times,
thousands of times, how it mentions you know your salvation
is in your brother and how you look at your brother,
(33:32):
and that in itself is just such a beautiful teaching
to remember.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, we really are fortunate. I've had the good
fortune to go to a couple of workshops with Gary
and got to go to dinner with him and Cindy,
and it was just a blessing to have fun with it.
But going back to the course itself, you know, I
mean it's growing and growing all these years, fifty years now.
(33:58):
I would like to know where do you think A
Course in Miracles stands in the world? How many copies
have been sold since it was first published? How many
languages has it been translated into it? And what do
you think is the future of this book and its teachings.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Oh my gosh, Well, of course I can only tell
you what I think, mostly intuitively, where I think my
pulses that were the pulses on the course, and I'm
happy to do that. I can certainly tell you that
the course seems to be growing. Well, I don't have
exact numbers of how many that we've sold. It's got
to be upwards of four million, if not more, of
(34:38):
the version that the Foundation sells, so I can tell
you that. And then it's also we have twenty seven
current translations different languages of A Course in Miracles, and
we're working on three others this year, so by twenty
twenty six they'll be thirty translations. And yeah, what you know,
(35:03):
it's fifty years old. It seems like what I'm seeing
at least more and more from the standpoint of also
overseeing our permissions and licensing team is we're getting a
lot of people asking for different permissions on how to
use the course of that. Can you know, I use
these quotes, et cetera, et cetera, But I and I
(35:24):
think a sliver of how many people are actually talking
about the course of those requests are coming in. But
it's just a sliver I think of what is really
really happening. If you do a search, there's so many
people talking about a course in miracles now, and whether
that's on YouTube or blogs. I mean there's thousands upon
thousands of teachers and not only in English. And you know,
(35:47):
having now that I'm a part of the foundation and
very connected with people internationally and have done searches in
Spanish and other language, and there's a lot going on,
a lot going on, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
And some people only even have a whole podcasts about
a course in mer But what amazing is since fifty
years since the two professors from Columbia and Ken Wapnik
and Judas Scotch moved to California, and I believe it's
based in Mill Valley California now in the Bay Area.
How far it's come in a beautiful, beautiful influence and
(36:24):
change in the world, and now you're part of it.
Thank you, thank you for doing what you do.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Oh my gosh, it's my pleasure. Yes and yes, the
headquarters of Foundations for Inner Peace is no longer a
Mill Valley address. It's a Nevada address. But we are
still in the Bay Area.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, you know there is. And this is one of
the first lines of the course that really stuck with me.
There's a beautiful line in the course right at the
front of the book that says, nothing real can be threatened,
nothing on reel exist. Here in lies the peace of God.
(37:02):
I think the very first time I read that line,
I don't think I really understood what it means. So
what exactly does this line mean to each and every
one of us who's experience life in this body.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yeah, nothing real can be threatened, nothing and real exists.
Here in lies the peace of God. So something I'd
like to share that I know some spiritual students have
had an experience with I call it revelation. Some have not,
But I will say in I will speak to it
(37:37):
from my experience of having a revelation. And so this
was many years ago. Is actually before I was a
core student. I had a set of mystical experiences that
I think now I look back on it and I
see how these experiences have propelled me down a spiritual
path even more more to find like the answers of
(37:58):
the exactly happen. When I was about seventeen years old,
I was going through a difficult time and just you know,
being a teenager it's tough anyway. There's a lot of things,
and you're growing, You're trying to understand the world around you.
There's more pressure from society whatever at the time, I
think with work and trying to do well to get
(38:20):
into college, et cetera, et cetera. But I remember going
through a very dark period and I didn't really understand
what it was. You know, I wouldn't. I would not
have called it depression at the time, even though I'm
sure if I went to see a practitioner or a
clinician about it, I would have been diagnosed with that.
(38:41):
But it was such a difficult time that it brought
me to a place where I kept getting sinking, going deeper, deeper, darker, darker,
over the course of a few months. And then one
day something happened where I didn't get a turn in
some homework and different things, and I remember, all of
(39:05):
a sudden, something gently switched. It shifted in my perception.
And then I will say, almost all of a sudden
this it was almost like I had one foot in
this world and one foot in another realm. But this experience,
it's a very I call it revelation, and a course
talks about this, so I hope people look this up
(39:26):
if they're unfamiliar with it. But it's a very direct experience.
It's a very personal experience that you have with God,
is what the course will say. And it's a temporary
suspension of space and time, which exactly what it was
for me. But what I experienced in that time, and
it was again I was feeling very very low my
(39:47):
worldly identity. Okay. It was so bad that I was like,
I don't even want to be here anymore, sort of
like that, okay, And I remember being in class and
it shifted so much that I had this experience of
truly perfect love, true perfect love, nothing real can be threatened,
(40:08):
nothing unreal exists. Here in lies a peace of God.
It was if they believe the Bible talks of a
peace that passes all understanding. It was that it was
all I can use is it's almost and I think,
of course, even talks about you can't it's ineffable, like
(40:29):
you can't really even talk about it because it's such
a personal experience. There aren't any words to properly describe this.
But all I can do is point the way to
say that it was absolute, perfect peace. It was the
most love I had ever felt in my life. With
all the relationships and support that I have had in
(40:50):
this world, especially at that time growing up, it was nothing,
nothing like the love I have experienced in this world
in my interpersonal relationships. And it was showing me very
gently that there's you're already whole, and you're already perfect,
and this what you're experiencing is nothing at all that
(41:16):
in itself. I love that that quote that you said
is at the beginning of a course in miracles, because
for me and my experience propelling me down the spiritual path,
even though I found the course it was many years later,
that was it really for the beginning for me. You know,
I think so many people we often come to a
place of discomfort and suffering for us to go deeper. Okay,
(41:41):
And for whatever reason in my mind at that time,
I felt like I sort of took a step out
of this worldly identity, not by myself, with help, and
just for a few moments. It probably lasted a few minutes.
It was the most ultimate, perfect, beautiful experience, and that
I know now. Didn't know this until I started studying
(42:04):
a course of miracles, But that in itself was what
the course described as revelation. And that is the best
way I can describe what that quote means.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Well, you know, I haven't personally had any real dramatic,
you know, spiritual being in the moment of pure love. Now,
I will say as a student, when I do touch
more into that place of aligning perfectly with my source
and the unity of all that is, isn't it beautiful?
(42:39):
How when you get in that place of pure love,
peace also comes with it. As soon as I am
in that realm, I immediately feel much more peaceful. I
love that.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yes, No, you're absolutely right, And you know the course
close to the beginning of the text it will speak
about you know, all you need is a little willingness
as you hear a lot of people say, you just
need a little willingness, and I think it is just
that being able to want it, to have the little
willingness to shift, and to be able to see things differently,
(43:13):
to ask the Holy Spirit, to ask Jesus to look
at the world or the script with you holding Jesus's hand,
That in itself what is immediately transformative for me. Okay,
and sometimes for really big things you just need to
practice on it. But you can almost immediately feel that
(43:34):
that shift, and I love that. It's like it's just
really like you said, it's like having that willingness going
there and feeling immediately better now. Of course, later in
the course, in the manual for teachers, it does talk
about you need to have an abundant amount of willingness,
and I think there's truth to that as well. Because
it takes we do this course over a period of years,
(43:57):
you can certainly do it very well for the rest
of one's days here on earth. And it takes a
commitment to be uncompromising to this practice that that comes
in time.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, yeah, commitment. I've been reading a lot about consistency too,
which is important when you're aligning with back home with
your higher self. Well, Selena, as you already found out,
I have this tendency to ask really large questions. So
I'm going to shift gears again here. Let's discuss the ego. Many,
(44:34):
many modern psychologists say that your ego is your friend.
Well that's not exactly how the course looks at the ego.
As a matter of fact, it says the ego is
not your friend. Right, what are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
You know I would have I totally understand both sides.
But what the course brings our attention to is, no,
the ego is not your friend. The ego is trying
to I'm that pretty clearly in chapter nine, so it's
definitely worth a reread. What I would say is, first
(45:13):
of all, that has been really helpful for me. That
has been helpful for me because it really gives me
a framework on what it is I'm doing when I
am employing the thought system of the ego. The egos
thought system is one that's divisive, okay. It's one that
(45:35):
puts makes you a victim. It puts everything outside of yourself.
It takes the guilt in the mind and projects it
onto your brother. It will do anything to try to
keep you feeling safe. Okay. So even modern psychology, we'll
talk to about the ego about that, like there's benefits
(45:57):
to it. It tries to keep us safe, okay, But a course,
and Jesus is teaching us to go deeper, okay, and
to really and again this is the practice of the mind.
I'm not saying we have to take any outright action
unless we're inspired to do so, but really to go
in and understand that when we are looking and thinking
(46:19):
of things with the ego, and that's by ourself. So
there's a caveat to this only with the ego. I mean,
it's really for the purposes of destroying and keeping the
guilt away from your mind. So you think you seemingly
feel better, but what's really happening is you have the guilt.
(46:41):
You're not looking at it with the Holy Spirit. It's
not being transformed, but projecting it outward on your brother
without doing the inner work. Just keep reinforces the dream experience, okay,
and it just keeps reinforces the so called emotion energy
in more sore over the guilt in your mind. Okay,
(47:03):
that shifts happening. Now people can easily say this somebody, Oh,
the ego. It's such a bad thing. I need to
hate the ego. And I'm not saying do that either,
because that in itself is a trick. The ego would
love for you to hate. But the beautiful thing about
(47:23):
this practice is the Holy Spirit uses the ego to
undo the ego. So we're not saying just be normal
in your life. You know, we're not saying act holier
than now. We're not saying do spiritual bypassing. What the
(47:44):
Holy Spirit is asking us to do is to look
at whatever is coming up in the mind. You don't
even have to say anything to anyone, but look what's
coming up in the mind and see it with love,
see it in pure awareness. If it helps for you,
that image a lot of course students, and I think
it was doctor Kenneth Wapnik who brought this stuff like
(48:06):
hold Jesus's hand and watch it on the movie screen.
I love that particular practice for myself. But the Holy
Spirit uses the ego to under the ego. So we
look at the ego with help. We do it with help.
We don't try to undo it ourselves. It won't work. Okay,
we're too much into its thought. System because we really
(48:28):
deeply out of our awareness, we are very very identified
with it. There is so much pain and guilt so
deep on a out it's you know, are subconscious that
if we weren't able to do this gently easily with
help from God Holy Spirit, then it would be very difficult.
(48:52):
It would be you know, impossible without their help. But
it's just a gentle process in this dream experience.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Well, thank you for that explanation, because that's not an
easy topic. I think people who aren't sure, well, who's
talking to me? The ego or God? And we know
that the ego will always speak first and the loudest,
with the most urgency, whereas God or Source will will
(49:21):
always gently speak to you and quietly. I've found myself
it's almost like when I know Source is talking to me,
I'm just like a tap on the shoulder. Hey remember
doing this? You know? And yeah, And I found that
there are even times where I'm sitting there and i
know I'm feeling very close to Source, all of a sudden,
(49:44):
this voice will come on you stupid, what are you doing?
I just said, WHOA, I know who's talking to me? There?
Speaker 4 (49:50):
Yeah, No, it's it's true. And you know earlier you
asked me how I felt talking about some of the
slow burns or forgiveness opportunity, and that we had mentioned
my divorce. But just for practical application that my help
viewers understand better is, you know, use what comes up
(50:11):
in your life now. For me, in that experience, that
was kind of a big thing. But I had been
studying the course for four years. Apparently Jesus spot I
was ready for some real rubber meats road application, and
you know what, I was certainly willing when it happened.
And without going too much to the details, people can
listen to that Miracle Voices podcast if they would like
(50:33):
to know more. But you know, when you're going through
something where you feel like you've been betrayed, someone has
done you so wrong, and not only that, but then
you find yourself, oh, I'm losing my house, my community,
all of these things are changing and almost compounds experience
(50:55):
like it was kind of a big thing. But I
remember that when it happened, I immediately and I realized
what was happening in front of me. I immediately went
into another room and fell on my knees and I said,
you'd be in charge. You show me how to do this.
(51:17):
You show me how to look at this, and the
way that you would want you show me, because I
knew theoretically that nobody's really out there, nothing has really happened. Okay,
it's like all done. I knew as a course student,
(51:37):
even in the early days, that this was all a
presentation of a grand projection being played out in front
of me in my experience, okay, And it was very
easy to take all the pain and be like, you
did this, you did this, and you know, from the
level of the world, there were a lot of things
(51:58):
that had occurred during that time that you could say, oh,
you know, it does seem that she was really victimized there,
but I knew to go deeper, and so all these
things that we've been talking about. When it happens, you
ask for help to look at it differently and and
you understand the thoughts something that we've already explained here,
(52:21):
but you just keep vigilant at it, and especially with
the big burns, you'd have to be give yourself grace.
You have to know that because we are in a
dream of time and space, it's going to probably take
some time and things will come up and then you
forgive it and it'll come up again, and sometimes it
seems like endless. But you know, the course also says
(52:43):
you don't know what anything is for, and so I
can only imagine, and I have to trust the guidance
the teacher that was given to me knows what they're doing,
that I am applying the practice, and that great shifts
of transformation are occurring within the mind the Son of God.
And this is my part in the projection that I
(53:07):
was given to apply these principles because there's only truly
one of us, even though the world now appears to
have eight billion people, and the universe and beyond I'm
sure has infinite number of beings. But let me look
at how big the script can appear to be when
a course in Miracles tells us there's only the one
(53:27):
Son of God and you're it.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Wow. Well, we are speaking to Selena Granado, the chief
communications officer for the Foundation for Inner Peace, the publisher
of the Course in Miracles. We're gonna wind up with
the last couple minutes here, and thank you Selena. You
know many of my guests here on this show over
the last seven years i've been doing it, have said
(53:52):
that humanity is on the cusp of a dramatic transformation
into an age of enlightenment and awakening. What do you
think about this?
Speaker 4 (54:04):
You know, I of course feel that there is something
that happen, and I would think so too. You know,
if anybody who is involved in metaphysics are on the
spiritual path, and you know, some of us go really
deep and like the symbolism and the woo ness, and
(54:25):
they have followed the harmonic convergence of eighty seven, and
then in twenty twelve, you know, it's like, what is it.
It's now the age of Aquarius and the end of
the mind calendar. I mean, you can go down those
paths and they can really you know, I don't think
I like them. They're interesting, but I don't give them
too much thought because they could also be a distraction.
(54:48):
But it does seem at least, you know, from my experience,
seeing how many people are on a spiritual path. And
it's not just a course in miracles, but there's a
lot more teachers non dualistics, some not. But it does
seem like there is an explosion of people that are
(55:08):
again more spiritual and not religious, not dogma involved. People
who are willing to look inside, go inside, ask these
questions about themselves. It seems that collective consciousness, I will say,
has been raising and you know, and that would mean
for the individual that they're willing to ask harder questions,
(55:29):
you know, more productive questions or will people are wanting
to take responsibility in their life. They're no longer we're
longer looking at external structures or governments, or political control
or religions to help guide themselves. Theyre going within. And
I think we're seeing this in every direction, no matter
whether you're a core student or what type of spiritual
(55:51):
students that you are, and whatever level you're at, I
think we're seeing that. So I fully answered that question, but.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
Not eight Selena, I really appreciate you being on here.
I think we could probably do another eighty seven episodes.
We're gonna have to make it the Selena and Carl Show.
But you know, we have to have to head out here.
But can you please tell us how people can contact
(56:20):
support and find out more about a course in miracles
and its publisher and the keeper of the founder found
a dation for inner peace.
Speaker 4 (56:29):
Absolutely, thank you for asking. So the foundation for inner peace,
of course, is we are the original scribe authorized publisher
of A Course in Miracles. We're celebrating our fiftieth anniversary
this year of courses, fiftieth anniversary of the first printing
in nineteen seventy five. I should say, but you can
find us, and I think one of the best ways
(56:50):
right now and it's easy is ACIM dot org. Acim
dot org A Course Inmiracles dot org is our internet address,
and from there you can certainly sign up on our newsletter.
We are a foundation that works and that depends on donations,
(57:13):
so there's a way to donate as well. We do
have a lot of information about our history our translators,
but we are still printing a Course in Miracles, and
we're also expanding it not only in other languages like
I talked earlier, but in digital products as well. And
we always make space for these types of communications discussions
(57:33):
with our own webinar series, which we have one at
least once a month. So learn more about us there
at acim dot org, and we're on online on all
the social media channels do and.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
I have to say that aacim dot org is a
beautiful website. I utilize it all the time, and a
great way to check it out. Selena Granado, thank you.
What a beautiful opportunity you have you on World Awakenings.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (58:02):
So happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
This has been another episode of World Awakenings, The Fast
Track to Enlightenment with host Carl Gruber, a certified law
of attraction life coach. We welcome you to tune in
to each and every episode of World Awakenings as we
open your mind, your heart, and your eyes to the
fact that the world's population is now more than ever
(58:40):
awakening to the truth of all things spiritual, metaphysical and enlightening,
and just how much they play an all important role
in our moment to moment daily life. Much love and
light to you, my friend, and thank you for tuning
into World Awakening.
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