batgap.com Interview with David Hoffmeister

The Buddha at the Gas Pump interview of David Hoffmeister.

0:20 - 3:50: Introduction to David Hoffmeister

3:38 - 16:20: "What is the Course in Miracles?"

16:20 - 40:44: "What does ACIM teach?"

• 22:22: Confusion of levels
• 32:40: the mechanics of miracles
• 39:48: Telling of the Raising of the Dead story

44:30 - 56:50: What are Miracles?

56:10 - 1:08:40: What percentage of people are transformed by the teaching in their experience?

• 1:01:10: To what degree do you feel you have achieved self realization?

1:08:40 - 1:12:10: What is it like when you receive guidance from Jesus?

1:12:10 - 1:36:26: What is the daily routine like for a ACIM student?

• 1:21:20 -1:27:30: Is individual striving counter indicated by ACIM?
• 1:27:30 - 1:36:26:  Commenting on the effect a ACIM teacher can have, and on information packed in movies

Questions from a viewer who recommended David for interview:

1. 1:36:26 - : people pleasing
2. 1:41:05 - : what is creation?
3. 1:52:30 - : Beyond consciousness?
4. 1:55:30 - : does God enjoy his creation?
5. 2:09:00 - : after enlightenment, then what?

2:15:00 - ; Lucid dream, the acid test.

2:18:30 - : Last question: if creation is a mistake, shouldn't we just kill ourselves?

"That" which we seek

Enlightenment, awakening, oneness... what is all that? It seems to be something difficult to describe in words, unexplainable but to be experienced. Is it possible to describe the experience? From what I read, it seems to be different for everyone, it's something indescribable, but when it happens, you just know it. 

The interview with Harri Aalto - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview is really interesting to me. I came to view Harri Aalto is a someone with a dual activated body, using Ra's lingo, someone that simultaneously possesses the third and forth density bodies in this incarnation. At the age of four, he came to what he called "self realization".

In the interview, he talked about an experience (watch the link from 7:10 for about 2 min) that got me thinking. It is an experience that made him realize that the thing that all spiritual seekers seem to search for is with him all the time, but only by experiencing not having it, he realized its persistent presence with him/us.  

I do not have any experience like he did, yet I understand him. He also used the example of the space in a room, how it's acknowledged via the surrounding walls . It reminds me of something I noticed recently. Next to where we live, a couple of high-rise apartments were build. The building themselves were not so impressive, as they have the environmental friendly design of bare concrete. But connecting the buildings and the low-rise office nearby, they built a long and straight corridor with 3-story high ceilings. It really lightens up the place and looked magnificent/grand.  

I wondered about the feeling this corridor could induce when you first see it. Just a few steps away, there is a grassy ground the size of football field where you can see straight out the same distance as you can in the corridor, and you can look up the sky as far as you can see, much further than the corridor's ceiling, then why walking into that open field does not induce the same sense of awe as walking into a man-made corridor?

I think this can be viewed in the same light as Harri's example. This "thing", this unboundedness -- it is with us all the time, but we don't noticed it. Some of our experience of limitations, such as the walls that made up a room and the construction of a corridor enclosing a space, make us become aware of "it", then we call that experience enlightenment, awakening, self realization, or whatever...

This unboundedness is called by many names: silence, God, nothingness, divine, enlightenment, oneness, infinity, the now... It is the waterThere are these two young fish swimming along, and happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says: "Morning boys, how's the water?" The two young fish swim on for a bit, and eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes: "What the hell is water?" in This is Water; it is the present in Present; it is what induced the feeling when we see the grand canyon for the first time; it is what Jill was able to experience when she suffered a stroke. 

It is ever present, but it is not always felt. Many people seek to experience it, but we seem especially seek to experience it through some grand, awe-inducing ways.  Or maybe only when it is grandiose and awe-inducing, then we noticed it? People try meditations, psychedelic drugs, maybe even sky diving... I seem to be content just knowing it's there, and being consistently aware that it's there through ordinary experiences.