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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually Awakening people. Today’s guest I believe is going to be number 385. And if this is new to you go to BatGap dot and if you want to see more, go to batgap.com and look under the past interviews menu and you’ll find all the previous ones archived in various ways. This show is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers so if you appreciate it and feel like supporting it, there’s a Donate button on every page of the site. My guest today is Mari Peron. Mari I just got to read her bio here and then perhaps stop reading it and speak extemporaneously. But Marie tells us she’s delighted that a course of love has granted her a voice in the new dialogue that is open about who we are as human and divine beings. She feels that the wisdom of the heart a major focus of a course of love, has at times been missing from the conversation and loves being able to speak for both the heart and the human. A question asked within a course of love is this doesn’t it make sense that the only error possible is that of not being who you are. Mario is called the first creator of excuse me first receiver of this course, that has been given as an extension of what was begun in A Course in Miracles. Of course in miracles which recorded by Helen Schucman. In the late 60s and early 70s. Helen was called a scribe of the words of Jesus, which since that time, have gone out to millions of people all over the world. A Course in Miracles was stated, was stated to be a course in thought reversal and mind training. Within a course of love which Mari received between 1998 and 2001. Jesus calls Mari its first receiver and says that each person who lets it enter their heart is receiver as well. It started it stated purpose is a return to a true identity prior to the time of learning, and it caught calls for learning to end. Mari feels that in a world that has told us that everything we need to know can be known with our minds and our learn from teachers, experts and gurus. We’ve often felt discouraged from listening to our hearts or trusting our inner knowing, of course of love offers a new way of knowing and invites us to enter dialogue and become creators of the new mine lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she is a writer and contemplative as well as an engaged mother and grandmother. So welcome, Laurie,
Mari Perron: thank you so much for having me, Rick.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Glad to meet you. And it’s been nice getting to know you over the past week listening to your recordings and reading your books.
Mari Perron: And getting my phone calls about am I doing this right?
Rick Archer: Working out some technical snafu? Yeah. So what we just revealed in my reading that little thing is that, you know, you kind of channeled this book from Jesus. And I know that you yourself said that when you first were exposed to A Course in Miracles, you were a little skeptical as to whether it was really from Jesus, or you know, I don’t know what you might have thought it might have been. But that’s a little bit of a tall order, perhaps. And so, you know, let’s help out those who might also be skeptical and, and give a little explanation as to how you beat let’s say, That’s how did you become convinced that A Course in Miracles was really from Jesus? And and how would you what would you say to those who might be skeptical that either that book or yours are really from Jesus?
Mari Perron: Really good question. I think what I know what convinced me when I was reading A Course in Miracles was a feeling of being known. I was absolutely astounded that what I was reading, explained, absolutely. In the thinking that’s insane was my thinking, you know, so it’s talking about how you torture yourself with these thoughts, you know, and, and how insane that is, and, and I, but it was like, he just knew me. And I thought that had to be a divine knowing for some one to talk to people all over the world, and have them feel the same way to have them feel that known. And there was also something about it The words themselves, you know, like, I felt it much more with my own course you know that entering. But there was like a rhythm. And I just fell into that I never studied A Course in Miracles. I never joined a group. I think the only associated book I read was Marianne Williamson this book, because I just read it over and over, because it was like, when I was reading it, I just felt like I was with Jesus. It was incredible. So that’s how I felt I knew, I think people will feel that or they want you know,
Rick Archer: I’m going to ask you a few short, simple questions that might be the kind of questions a child would ask. Okay. So first of all, who’s Jesus?
Mari Perron: Well, you know, I was raised Catholic. And, you know, I was born in 1955. So when I was young, you know, all the moms were stay at home moms, and people only have one card. Like, the only time we we really went in the car to go anywhere was to church, almost. So every week, we’d go to church. And in those early days, it was still Latin, and it was mysterious, and, and I felt like that mystery was something that moved him to me intrigued me. I mean, it was like I was. So from my very early age, you know, I liked going to church. And then I went to Catholic school, where they told me, You know, Jesus was my brother and my friend, and I began to talk to Jesus, and just always feel that I had, and someone accompany me, who cared about me and loved me. And, and so I think part of the way I see Jesus is based on that, and other people will see it differently. But it’s, you know, the idea of Jesus’s God’s Son who incarnated and lived here as a man, and I think that symbology is very true to what’s going on now. That we are being called now to realize that we have that God spark in us and to live that way. And so to have one example, life that said, you know, I am both man and God, that feels very important to me.
Rick Archer: Okay. Second, childlike question. Okay, where does Jesus live?
Mari Perron: Well, yeah, where do you know any of our deceased loved ones go, you know, and you feel that presence sometimes have a grandmother or you know, somebody who, especially those who’ve just recently died? You know, like, I know, after my dad died, I kept hearing this song. This Beatle song in my head, and I don’t know if I can remember it. Now.
Rick Archer: Give me a hint, and I’ll know it.
Mari Perron: If there’s anything that you want, oh, if there’s anything that you need from me from Yeah, from edu, and it was like, in my head, in my head in my head until suddenly, you know, and you’re just like, you wanting it to go away. You’re not even listening to it. And then all of a sudden, I said, Oh, my God, that’s gotta be. Because that’s just, you know, he wouldn’t be the singing Beatles to me. But that would be his message to me. But I mean, I’ve had so many experiences of feeling connected and talk to people who, you know, been connected with people who have passed on and, and so I do believe that there’s a field of consciousness. And it’s not a blob of fields. You know, it’s, there are individual consciousness, even within the wholeness of consciousness. And that’s where Jesus, the man of eyes, there’s another part of Jesus that in my courses called Christ consciousness, and so,
Rick Archer: yeah, okay. Third question a little bit less childlike is, so you’re, you’re kind of implying that there’s a realm where Jesus resides, and presumably, other beings reside there also. And, you know, we’re told when your kids Well, Jesus lives in heaven and so on. So maybe we could call that realm heaven. And that, you know, Jesus isn’t just sort of hanging out and playing a harp. He’s actively in engaged in the concerns of humanity through people like you and many, many others who, you know, who invoke him in one way or another or connect with him in one way or another is would you agree with what I just said? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, totally Uncharted light question. NASA tells us that there are probably around 20 billion earth like planets in our galaxy and Now over 2 trillion galaxies in the known universe. So if you do the math, that’s a lot of places where life potentially exists. Do you feel that Jesus is sort of has a local jurisdiction that he’s assigned to this planet and takes care of it? Or do you feel that he is kind of some kind of Universal Spirit that is engaged in the welfare of uncountable trillions and quadrillions of planets?
Mari Perron: Well, I believe that the idea of Jesus being the Son of God is, you know, that he’s the same as Scott and God, I see God as the Creator of everything. And I, you know, don’t have any problem with anybody else’s way of saying that that’s my way of saying it. So yes, I would certainly see that the whole universe is part of this loving act of a loving Creator.
Rick Archer: Okay. And that Jesus, the being the entity that the emissary of God is actually overseeing and interceding in some way, with beings throughout the whole universe, is that what you’re saying? I know, this is kind of speculative. But but you know, what, when. And I, you know, I’m not sort of giving you a hard time here. It’s just that I find that astronomy is one of the greatest defenses against religious fundamentalists. And I know you’re not one of them, you’re not fundamentalist. But when they start telling me that Jesus is the only way and you know, that kind of thing, I start, I start kind of giving him a hint is how big the universe might actually be. And and we start getting into the world at 6000 years old, I started talking about the speed of light and how the Andromeda Galaxy is 2 million years away, and things like to be in light years away. So I put this in a cosmic cosmic context and what we’re actually talking about here.
Mari Perron: Yeah, I believe most spiritual beings, you know, people who are spiritual call themselves spiritual or religious, but particularly spiritual, really feel that there is that God spark in them that they are of the Divine, and they have a divine self as well as a human self. And so I don’t how does your question? Yeah, I just don’t see any problem with if with, you know, attaching that godliness that created the universe, to, you know, among people attach that to different things as they’re growing up as they’re raised as they are thoughtful, and as they explore other things. And I have no problem with that. It’s just for me, that is I what I believe in Jesus. As that one I, as far as I know, and I’m not, I’m not a scholar at all. So, but as far as I know, no other spiritual person was called the Son of God. I think there’s kind of that. And I say, even if you don’t believe it, that symbology that we can be of God here in form. I feel it’s really important. Yeah. Especially right now.
Rick Archer: Sure. But I don’t know, does it say in the Bible? And if not, the Bible does say in the Gnostic Gospels are something that we’re all sons and daughters of God? And so that’s not a kind of an exclusive title is something that could be said of anyone? Yes.
Mari Perron: Yes. But until that time, I don’t think we understood that. And then, you know, but a lot of people still don’t understand that. But I think he was the example of that. Yeah. In history, right. That’s all I’m saying.
Rick Archer: No, that’s good. And, but And how about, I don’t know, to what I think you’ve initially you hadn’t, but now you’ve studied other traditions, and, and so on around the world. And, you know, there are many beautiful examples of people who are God, conscious saints, you know, and God realized and one with God and spoke very beautifully and wrote beautiful poetry and scriptures and all that stuff. So I mean, is, it seems like we all have the potential to be that, you know, we all are that essentially, and have the potential to realize that consciously and that there’s nothing exclusive about Jesus. He was just a profound example, example of what’s possible. Do you agree there?
Mari Perron: Absolutely. I mean, that’s, I didn’t if I didn’t make it sound that way. Yes. It’s like, I think that’s the the thing about Jesus that’s so universal is that we are all that. Yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And he said, I think he said, you know, all these great things that I do, you’ll do even greater things, you know, and so So he wasn’t setting himself up as sort of the, the, you know, the one guy that had access to this sort of realization he was I, as I understand it, trying to convey that everyone has that potential. And still, you know, still is Yeah,
Mari Perron: yeah, instead of seeing ourselves as limited to who we are, in our human form to see our humanity and our godliness our divinity combined,
Rick Archer: right? Yeah. Okay, good. So I don’t mean to give you a grilling here, I just want to kind of lay that foundation have, you know, because a lot of people sort of have, and a lot of spiritual people who are into eastern spirituality now sort of have a bad taste in their mouth, from their religious upbringing, you know, where they were kind of harangue about, you know, the, this is the only way and, and there, there have been so many wars and carnage behind that idea that just kind of establishing the broad mindedness of this conversation here.
Mari Perron: Yes, yeah. The one right way has has wreaked a lot of havoc.
Rick Archer: Yes, yeah. Good. So as I gather the course of love, I think this is a real beautiful thing that you lay out that I didn’t know, in one sense, I’m not a very good person to be interviewing you about this, or course in people and of course, in miracles, because I haven’t really studied either. But you laid out something really interesting about A Course in Miracles that I didn’t know, which is that it seems to be largely about the mind, and tends to dismiss the world as illusion. And whereas a course of love is heart oriented, and doesn’t emphasize that the world is merely an illusion wouldn’t, wouldn’t just sort of brush it off so glibly
Mari Perron: No
Rick Archer: wonder elaborate a bit on that.
Mari Perron: Yes, it feels so important. Because I really believe that what is happening now we’re in a new time, and it’s astrology is telling us that and, you know, all kinds of people are telling us that we’re in this time. And I believe it is a time of embodying it’s in time of embodying this. And that that is what’s going to create a new world that’s so to imagine that the world is anything but holy. And anything that real is something that I hope people begin to, you know, a pattern of thought that maybe people will begin to shake a little bit as we embrace and embody our divinity here on Earth. And I have met so many people, almost all have a course of loves readers come to it from A Course in Miracles. And I’ve had people tell me stories that are a mean of just shutting down because of that idea of the illusion. You know, a woman told me she hadn’t cried over a sunset and years, because she believed now that was an illusion. One man even told me, he didn’t name his child because the child and porn was just an illusion. I don’t know if that’s true. But he told me that, you know, so. Just name them illusion. Yeah, maybe. So there was there were certain extremes that that idea had people going to, and what a course of love does, which I think is particularly important for those from A Course in Miracles is bring that back, but actually Course in Miracles in my readings of it, and like I say, I’m no scholar, I just read it. I didn’t study it. But I read it many times. And I never got that. I never got that sense. And I think a lot of interpretations and popular realizations have done that more so than the actual book. And if I had a good memory, I could tell you many passages, but I don’t. But there are many passages in A Course in Miracles where creation is spoken of this world is spoken of as beautiful. Yeah. And so
Rick Archer: the way I have come to terms of that whole world is illusion point is that it’s illusion, in the sense that we’re not seeing it or right, you know, we’re not seeing it as it really, in its full glory. I mean, even science will tell you, you look at anything and you know what, you’re not really seeing what’s actually there. And your science has given us tools to see more deeply into what what we’re actually looking at. And, you know, it’s a whole other world that we’re not aware of just sort of glancing superficially So in the same by the same token, you know, there’s so much more to be appreciated of the world that that is all around us. And if we’re just sort of perceiving it superficially, like through a glass darkly, as the Bible says, then we’re, you know, in a sense, that’s illusion, because we’re not really seeing the full reality of it.
Mari Perron: Yes, and this isn’t exactly set in this language anywhere, but what I take from a course of love, and the way it talks about A Course in Miracles, and of course of love, is that the Eagles world was the illusion that exactly what you’re saying, you know, the perception that we had of the world and ourselves that we perceived ourselves as separate from everyone else as alone as having all these reasons to be fearful. That created our perception of a fearful, scary world. Yeah. So when you see the world with love, and you see yourself with love, that’s a really huge part. Everything changes. Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: There’s that saying, life sucks, then you die. And that’s, yeah, there are other perspectives that are a lot more encouraging.
Mari Perron: I have the sense of this being. I mean, I think humanity is in a certain sense, like the last frontier, you know, that we had, we’re a consciousness that grew out of crenate, creation. And I, we can have such joy and we can we are creators ourselves, as we begin to really experience the fullness of who we are. What a course of Love says is we can create the new and I am very much looking forward to being part of creating the moon.
Rick Archer: Yeah, well, you’re off to look forward to it, because you’re already doing it. Thank you. The thought that occurred to you a minute ago when we were talking about illusion is that, you know, if God is really omnipresent, as we’re told, and as there’s evidence for if you actually look closely at the marvelous intelligence and every little iota of creation, then, you know, the world is divine, because it’s God. You know, it’s we’re looking at it, we’re, you know, God, God is hiding in plain sight, so
Mari Perron: to speak. Exactly. How can God be in the smallest fleet and not in human beings?
Rick Archer: Yeah, and he isn’t a small sprit, look at a fleet under a microscope. And look what a miracle of creative intelligence that is.
Mari Perron: And I’m learning all this science by National Geographic for children. Ranger Rick. It’s great, because it’s, it’s not so complicated that I can’t understand it. Yeah. And I, and I just love it. I love reading those things. Yeah.
Rick Archer: With grandchild, Irene just made a noise because we’re dealing with flea problems on our dogs right now. And maybe she’s questioning that then. It was Woody Allen said that God is omnipresent, except for certain parts of New Jersey. One thing I found really cool about your whole thing is, and you may not know this, but there are a number of spiritual teachers and traditions that actually delineate a progression from Head to Heart to gut in terms of awakening, Adi Shanti, does uses those three terms. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi talked that way, talked about a sort of a realization of the cell phone on the way the level of the mind where, you know, you realize that the true nature of the self, but the world is regarded as illusion. And then the heart doesn’t like that, because the heart doesn’t like separation. And so the heart begins to bridge the Gulf, and eventually creates a sort of unification between self and, and world in which one appreciates the sort of divine or celestial quality of the world. And then he said that there’s another stage which might correspond to an audio Shanti, his guts stage, where true union takes place. And so if, if, of course, in Miracles is mine, and course of love his heart, maybe you’re actually tracking that same progression that these other teachers and traditions have discussed.
Mari Perron: It’s certainly possible. Yeah, one of the main themes of a course of love is, it starts with, you know, really changing the focus from Head to Heart, because it basically said the ego made off with everything you learned, you know, and so we come to the heart, so that doesn’t happen. But then as we go on, it talks about wholeheartedness it’s one of the main themes so that we unify ourselves from within first we unify mind and heart. So it’s not heart, it’s not a separation. So we do it we become in Union within and that’s like the key that gets us to being able to be more and more in union, outside of ourselves with in relationship with nature with our fellow human beings with God. Yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: In your own experience in your own life, did you see this kind of progression? Like when you were studying, of course in love? Of course, of course in miracles, I mean, did you sort of realize its potential to a significant degree experientially and perhaps even, you know, walk around regarding the world as illusion and all then have a kind of a dissatisfaction, like, there must be more.
Mari Perron: No. I just loved it. I just fell into it. And I loved it. And this happened to me with a Course of Miracles and a course of love, which has made it hard for me sometimes to talk about her, I think it’s going to be hard to talk about, and I usually seem to do okay, but I could never really remember it. And I have heard this now, for many people about a course of love, I don’t know so much about A Course in Miracles, but that it comes into you and you have the sense of you know, it, you got it, and then it’s gone. You know, so, um, but no, I didn’t. I didn’t feel I had now I forgot your question. Don’t think I felt the way you’re talking about. Okay,
Rick Archer: well, on this, you got it. It’s gone. Point. Yeah. I mean, when you’re studying a course, in miracles, you’re, you’re reading a book, right, or maybe you’re in a study group with other people, and you’re discussing it. And that’s kind of somewhat on the level of intellect, it would seem to me, you know, you’re taking in concepts and you’re pondering them, and so on. And, you know, spiritual realization is usually regarded as being something more visceral, more fundamental, more experiential. Like, if you taste and if you bite into an apple, you’re not conceptualizing the experience of the taste, you don’t even have to know it’s an apple, you can give it to somebody in Africa that’s never seen an apple, and they’d have that experience of the taste. So, you know, there are scriptures and books and all kinds of things which offer us things and concepts and words. And then there’s the experience that those things are pointing to, like Zen says, Don’t mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon, it’s just a pointer. So how does A Course in Miracles or a course of love, enable one to move from taking in words and concepts to actually having a living experience that you’re going to be having? Whether or not you’re entertaining those concepts?
Mari Perron: Well, you know, I think I didn’t feel that way with A Course in Miracles, because I didn’t study it, per se, I just kept reading it cover to cover seven times. And I didn’t go to groups, and I didn’t read the other teachers. So it was an experience for me. I don’t know how you feel about reading, but for me, reading is an experience. I mean, I am in love, you know, I fall in love, like with Thomas Merton, or, you know, Romae, or, you know, I just, I fall in love with these people who I read, and they’re like, the books are like, my best friends. And, and so they’re working in me, that’s the way I see it, they’re working in me. And they, and I reread books that I really like, because of that, I’ll just, I’ll go over them again. And, and there’s something that they’re, but I don’t necessarily, you know, I don’t study, they don’t stop to figure it out. It’s just I know, it’s speaking to me. And then maybe at some point, it informs an insight that I have or growth within me. But it’s not necessarily linked, which I think is one of the things, my favorite thing about a course of love is that it’s talking about the end of learning. So it’s like anything that what I have found is that anything that you are trying to learn keeps you from this absolute engagement that it is when you are in a in an inner place when you are accepting these things into an inner place. That’s an experience. And so how do you share, you know, without the teaching and learning model, and gee, what Jesus has at the end of the course of love as you share through dialogue, your share through being who we are. And I always think of the Do you remember the book Aquarian conspiracy?
Rick Archer: Yeah, I remember. I don’t know if I ever read it. Just basically, well, I had it
Mari Perron: for years too, and didn’t read it. And then when I read it, I was like, it made me it was like, it was that time, I believe, maybe 60s, when people here were really finding, you know, spirituality that for the first time and they were what was being done was they were sort of collecting these and everybody was just like a Gog and excited about what was happening. And that excitement was so wonderful to me and I, I believe that’s what happens. It’s like you get something you get something that calls you to your spiritual path. Something happens inside of you. Well, that’s it The beginning that’s you’re being touched by, not by, you know, not intellectually, it’s like your heart feeling a calling to a particular thing. And then if, but if you then go and try to study the way, I think a lot of people get trapped in that they’re going to, they’ve got an arrow, and they’re going to shoot it towards achieving that goal. And it becomes something else. It’s, it’s about the way rather than what they started out to have, you know, and certainly many people are, you know, are different than I am, and so are really finding much value in the different, you know, teachings and stuff. But I really love the idea of letting us remove ourselves from that way of learning, because we were taught our whole lives were taught our whole lives that we don’t know, enough. We don’t know enough to whatever it is fill in the blank. And so by the time we’re mature, you know, we’re listening to people telling us how to pray and how to parent and how to, you know, run our lives. And what a spirituality the heart gives back is our sovereign right to know, it says, you know, you can know you can remember what you don’t know. That’s precious to me.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I think that’s congruent with what a lot of spiritual teachers have said, like you say, you know, a world that has taught us that everything we need to know can be known with our minds and our learn from teachers, experts and gurus, we’ve often felt discouraged from listening to our hearts or trusting our inner knowing. But I think any any teacher or Guru worth his or her salt is saying, Hey, I’m giving you some pointers here. But you’ve got to discover this within yourself to really experience it. And I don’t want you to just hang on my words, I want you to explore with them and see whether this is true in your own experience.
Mari Perron: Of course, I’m not saying the teachers are doing anything wrong. But it’s like the approach. You know it? Yeah. So you’re, I’m going to be come awakened, I’m going to become enlightened. And there’s this sort of, you know, I say, like, if you are trying to achieve something you owe almost always in the atmosphere at level you fail. You know, it’s not like to me, you know, people talk about awakening, I think my most awake place is when I first opened my eyes in the morning, and I often have a really wonderful insight just waiting for me there. It’s like it’s wakeful, but not in our usual terms of wakeful. Yeah, yeah. So
Rick Archer: well, that’s actually, that’s something that’s actually discussed in spiritual literature that there’s a sort of a gap between major states of consciousness, and you can have intuitive or deep insightful experiences as you go through that transitional gap period. And, and they talk about expanding the gap till one’s whole life is lived in that gap, even though you’re going through the cycle of waking, dreaming and sleeping, you, you continually consciously reside in what they call to RIA or fourth state that lies beneath, or is fundamental to all the changing states.
Mari Perron: Well, I guess I don’t know that much about these things. And but I, you know, I follow my instinct in a way and, you know, I had my husband build me this cabinet behind our yard. And that, you know, I just, I get up in the morning, and I spend my first hours there. And I don’t do well in busyness and, you know, trying to take things in mentally now is, it’s just a distraction. So, yeah,
Rick Archer: I think you’re doing great. And I don’t think you could have done this whole course of love channel that if you had been all caught up in your mind, you wouldn’t have been a fit receptacle for it.
Mari Perron: Yes, there was one story I can tell you about. You know, when I first started, there weren’t chapters. And I’ve gone through what became the first 19 chapters. And by this time, you know, I was doing it every day that at anytime I could be alone, I would go and I would work on it. And then on Sundays, I would share it. So it was being shared all along. And anyway, so one day, I go to my computer, and I don’t hear anything, and I don’t hear anything. And eventually what I heard was, you can’t go on with your thinking mind. Those were the first words Jesus spoke to me personally, was you can’t go onto yours. You can’t go on with your thinking mind. because when I, when a course of love began, it just began. And it was those words that began, of course, that were the first words I heard. But this what you can’t go on with your thinking mind. And I was paused for several months that were absolutely horrible for me. I was, I felt very tortured in that time, I couldn’t figure out what I was doing, you know that? How do I still have any mind left, you know, and but anyway, then what follows. That is the most beautiful chapter of the course called the embrace. Almost everyone finds that that’s the most beautiful chapter, when he came back to me, he said, you know, now you are entering the embrace the embrace of love. And it’s just, it’s a very poetic chapter. And it’s the first time he speaks of the loss of the ego, he says, there’s no longer any, I have the ego. And so there’s this progression of from that point on more and more to because kind of begins talking to the ego. But by halfway through, he says, right out, the ego is gone. And you have to accept this because you don’t accept that the ego is gone, you’re going to have these two cells, you don’t want that you don’t want to stay divided.
Rick Archer: So if he says, The ego is gone, what if the ego isn’t gone? I mean, what if a person’s ego is very much intact? And we probably ought to define ego in the course of answering that question. Because there are a lot of definitions.
Mari Perron: Well, my favorite is it’s who you think you are. Or it’s the inner teacher who’s always telling you what’s right and wrong, and judging and all of that making you feel guilty, or all the fictions that you tell yourself, the things that aren’t true, those kinds of things are, are the way I describe it. And, you know, there’s a, I’ve had people ask me that question, like, how can you? How can it be said, that you have left the ego behind just by reading a book? And I say, Well, if you’ve just read the book, you probably haven’t. So what Jesus is saying is, there’s something that happens, that if you let this into your heart, if you’ve let it come into you, and it’s probably the biggest thing that I felt as the difference with receiving the words of Jesus was, it was impossible to stand apart, was impossible to stand apart from them. And I’ve, as people read and feel that, I do believe that they lose that ego self. And the courses definition is, is more like the self will believe it’s separate and alone. So if you really haven’t, couldn’t have taken in a course of love and still believe that you’re separate
Rick Archer: and alone. You know, if if you’re really taking it in? Yeah. There’s more questions I could ask you here now. But I think let’s, let’s take a step back, because I’ve heard your history many times, having listened to a number of your interviews, and so on, but people listening to this unless they’re already a follower of yours, or, you know, reader of yours haven’t don’t know much about you in that sense. So it’s kind of interesting to trace back how you got started on this whole thing. Your your administrator University, and then you have these two friends, and one of them, one of the friends got, they both got pregnant. And I want you to take up that story, just to sort of bring us up to speed on how you ended up doing this.
Mari Perron: Sure. It’s, well, as you said, I was working at the University of Minnesota, and these two women that I worked with, became pregnant within days of each other. So they were due at the same time. But then one of them had a healthy boy, and one of them had a baby girl named Grace, who died when she was five weeks old. And it was that experience, we were already close, but in more of a normal friend way. But when Mary lost her baby, we were just existing in this. You know, we were three women working together, we had this rule, you know, where we were together, and there was just this tenderness, a sort of palpable tenderness that we were exuding just you know, to be together in that time of loss for Mary and and just trying to be or not even trying to be with you. Don’t you just become gentle in a situation like that. And so I believe that that began it. But then, as Mary began to have these questions, you know about her baby’s death, and where do we go and what is, you know, Why would this happen to a baby? We all began to explore spirituality and in our different ways, like I was reading Joseph Campbell and I can’t really remember, but we would all then we would, you know, we’d go to work in the morning. And we’d bring these things that we were reading or feeling or the dreams that we were having back to the table. And we would spend our first little bit of time in the morning talking, and began to find out that we were having very amazingly similar insights and even at times experiences. And so that reading led me to pick up a book, I can remember it. So clearly, I was at the University of Minnesota’s bookstore. And I bought several books. And I got attracted to a cover of a book that was that was called Ask your angel, and I normally wouldn’t go in for anything like that. But anyway, I bought that book. And I kind of regretted it. And but I started to read it. And it said that you could talk to your angel. And that was my first experience of hearing beyond my senses. An angel piece, and I was in the basement of my 100 year old home. And I wrote this little note to the angel piece, I keep a journal, I always kept journals, you know, as far as writing in my journal, and said, you know, will you speak to me, and I heard the words smell the sweetness. And us Mel, like lilies wafted over me, which could come from nowhere in my old basement, which smell very musty. And
Rick Archer: then it’s worth noting that you weren’t too far from the cat box. Yes. The litter box.
Mari Perron: So you heard that. Say that again? Yeah, I was I was close to the litter box. So that was the beginning for me. And I was kind of bowled over. And, and there’s really, I mean, I know people, people back then particularly thought this was just a great thing, you know, but I was almost a little embarrassed by it. You know, it’s like I I don’t know, if I had really given it thought if I would have tried, I would have thought it was going to come through. I just, I don’t know, it was like this very unexpected thing that happened to me. And then, you know, there were many than instances from then on, where the knowing that I came to with this angel was pretty miraculous, and it helped people and it, it expanded my way of knowing. And, and so that story was published. And just after it had been published, I had the dream that called me to a course of love. And the dream was you can no longer sell your mind for money, your mind belongs to God. And I struggled with that for many months, just sort of trying to dismiss it. And it wouldn’t wasn’t easily dismissed. And then I approached my husband about it, I didn’t tell him I wanted to work for God, because I had just published these books. And so I said, you know, it’s a big good time for me to expand, you know, to do more writing. And so I, he agreed that I could leave and I gave my notice and left in at the end of March. So
Rick Archer: I think you said you’re getting to the point where you couldn’t work anyway because your mind wouldn’t work anymore. And a job it wouldn’t like it wouldn’t do what it was supposed to do.
Mari Perron: And honestly, it felt like a biblical affliction. I just, I’d always been a really good worker and really prided myself on my work. And I was like, I couldn’t do it anymore. I kind of got forced to write I got forced, I was trying to make the story a little bit shorter.
Rick Archer: I think that’s a significant point, actually, you know, yeah, I do. And I’ve heard things like that too. But it’s sort of like, you know, if, if we’re, there’s a saying, how’s it for the wise only an indication is necessary? And we’re not all that wise, some of us and it’s kind of like, alright, an indication doesn’t do it. Let’s give you a little bit of nudge. Okay, and nudge doesn’t do it. How about a good swift kick in the pants?
Mari Perron: I know I tried going down in my hours, I tried bringing my work home. I mean, I tried so many different things because I had these great friends at work and of course, was making money and we’re a working class family and but turned out I really had to believe you know, and then I didn’t know what my work for God was I never once in a million years dreamed it would be a course or a new person miracles, which is how it was put to me when it came I had I have no no thought like that even ever entered my mind.
Rick Archer: Yeah, you said you’re going talking to priests and like, what am I supposed to do for God and that kind of thing? Well, I
Mari Perron: didn’t Although I would, you know, I mean to tell anybody that except for your close spiritual friends that God wants you to work, you know, it’s so insane. And so I just went to my priests and kind of said, you know, I was ready for something, you know, and I ended up teaching CCD religion for a year. But I also was introduced from that visit to centering prayer, which I practice and I don’t have Thomas Keating on. Wonderful. So, you know, when you look back, that’s such a fun thing. And if so, for now, for me, it’s been almost 20 years, you know, it’s it was 1998, when, of course, began to come. So 18 years. And when I look back at you can really begin to see everything. Yeah, you know, how it all fit together? And how it made what happened happened, you know, yeah. But you couldn’t see at the time, it feels like you’re doing the stupidest thing in the world in a certain sense. And then, you know,
Rick Archer: yeah, that’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s kind of you gain trust in divine guidance, because in retrospect, you can see how it works. Yes. Yes. So okay, so you quit your job, and you went through kind of a doldrums period where you weren’t quite sure what you’re going to do for God and all that, and the, you know, the money was running out, and, and this and that. And so how did the course of love finally kick in? And what was the final impetus to get that going?
Mari Perron: It’s so funny, because I’ve been trying to find some of my old journals from that time, because, you know, to kind of put myself back there. And I did find, you know, the computers and everything changed so much. But I found this one, you know, type journal entry, like 50 pages from the month, before, of course of Love came. And I really, I was, so at the end of my rope, my husband had lost his job. And I was feeling like, I was going to have to go get a job. And I didn’t want to do that, because I felt like that would be, you know, giving up on this idea. And I saw, I did a couple things, I returned to A Course in Miracles, which is one of them, I put it away for a while. And I opened it up in my eyes opened, it was in the back the Manual for Teachers, which was always kind of my favorite part, and my eyes fell on the words help us here. So that was very comforting to me. And then I had also spent some of my time during my days off going to church, again, it was sort of my idea of having, I’d like to get up early, and I would go to this 645 mass, which was very short, and me and some old ladies. And so I wrote about that in this journal that the two days before I heard about a course of clubs coming, there was this gospel about the women woman with two Capricoins. And the message was, you know, she had to have total trust in God, you know, it wasn’t just given what she could afford, it was having this total trust. And then the next day, this one I hadn’t remembered. And the actual day that I heard about it was that the sermon was about insurance. And how you need to wait patiently. I mean, it was just like, they were speaking to me, you know. And so on that day, it was the 25th of November. And I got that thing about insurance after getting trust the day before. So I’m thinking, okay, you know, I can hang out a while longer. And it was my friend, Mary loves birthday. And Mary love was the mom of the baby Grace who had died and she is still my soul sister friend.
Rick Archer: I met her a little while ago.
Mari Perron: She’s helped me with technology. Thank god, she’s good at that. So she came over for her birthday. And we were talking just about first about, you know, it was November 25, we’re talking about normal things are ordinary Thanksgiving, Christmas, stuff like that. And then we began to talk with more depths and eventually about our dreams. And she told me she had just had a dream, in which she saw a New Course in Miracles. And that was when I began to take in the idea that this was what had been trying to get through to me was because of her sharing that dream, and then a November, so that was November 25. And December 1, first. I was, I was ready. I sat down and the rest is history, as they say,
Rick Archer: Did you sit down knowing that you were about to ascribe a course of love or to just kind of you’re just sitting there and all sudden you heard a voice?
Mari Perron: Well, after Mary left that day, actually, when my journaling and I’d had this happened with the angel piece where I would have a voice come in when I was journaling, and I heard a This was an announcement made to you this day. That, you know, it was very short, it was like three sentences. This was the announcement made to this day, A Course in Miracles, a new course something like that New Course in Miracles. And so then I knew I knew it was coming. But I was very doubtful, in a certain way, because I thought to myself, who would want a New Course in Miracles, you know, it was like it. It was. I mean, it had meant so much to me. And I knew how people how incredibly devoted to it people all over the world were. And I knew Helen took seven years, I’d read her story and and journey without distance, and say that what am I letting myself in for and who’s gonna want it when I’m done. So I kind of went through those things with my, which my humanity was considering me and my humanity was thinking about, but I knew, you know, even as I’m thinking about it, I knew I was going to do it, if that’s what it was, and, and so on this day, on December 1, which was interestingly, in terms of the church, it was the beginning of Advent, the time of the coming of Christ. And so, you know, we get the symbols that match us, you know, so I was getting these symbols that match me. And I waited a very short time, and they were those big old computers, then, you know, and the cursor seemed to blink so much more than now. And, and it wasn’t long at all. And I heard the words, this is A Course in Miracles, it is a required course. And I knew it was Jesus, and I fell to my knees. And it was very powerful. And is the best way I’ve known to describe it as I couldn’t stand apart from it, it was in me. And that is a powerful thing. And when it’s direct, it’s more powerful than, like, when something comes in you by reading, and it was a powerful thing. And then, you know, I got back in my chair, and it began. And it was like hearing thoughts. I wasn’t thinking, like, it wasn’t an audible voice, it wasn’t a male voice, it was just like, these thoughts were coming, and I would type them. And I would, you know, it’s called receiving and of course of love, Jesus calls me the first receiver and it’s receiving isn’t passive, you know, I’ve had a lot of people think that that’s a passive thing. It’s not passive. It’s a very intense attend to sort of listening. And, you know, if I can kind of shut you know, it’s almost like, you know, like, I would quiver, you know, between things, you know, with this, this coming on, you know, like, it was almost there. And, you know, it doesn’t sound like much of an experience, but it was a great experience. And I would at times, find myself, you know, rocking, I would suddenly, you know, I would have been typing for a while and all of a sudden, I realize I’m, I’m like this, and I’m, I’m rocking this and my heart is beating really strong, and I can feel it in my ear. You know, there aren’t a whole lot of exciting things to say about, you know, typing a course, but you’re these are some of the ones that alerted me. And also that, you know, that completes since cessation of time, you know, I mean, I, and I would forget to eat, and I actually became sick because I forgot to eat and so there were these different, you know, manifestations of the state of being so absorbed. Yeah. Yeah,
Rick Archer: that’s very, I think it’s a very genuine experience, and you’re obviously very sincere person. And it’s not without precedent. I mean, most of the good portion of the world’s revered books and scriptures were cognized, in one way or another, and almost, we could say, channeled. And not only spiritual things, I mean, people like Mozart, he would just cognize a whole symphony in a flash, and then he would have to take many, many hours writing it down, but he had the whole thing in one nutshell, you know, it just would come to him as an inspiration. And I very much doesn’t matter what I believe, but for the for what it’s worth, I very much believe that there are these sort of different strata of creation and various intelligences residing on various levels and you know, we may not be aware of them, but they may be aware of us and they may actually be playing some kind of role and helping us not blow ourselves to bits and you know, and and certain people are receptive enough to be go betweens, you know,
Mari Perron: Yes, yes, I think it’s, for me, when people call me a channeler, or a scribe, I mean, I consider what I have done closer to mysticism. I, you know, to that sort of state of being, and, and also because I always wanted to be a writer, you know, I didn’t have ambitions that were other than writing. And I think you’re
Rick Archer: a good writer. I mean, I’ve read a lot of your stuff. Now, it’s very well written. So obviously, if you couldn’t write to save your life, you wouldn’t have been a very, very rarely a suitable person to do this.
Mari Perron: Maybe. But, you know, it’s I think, you know, like the works of the mystics, it’s like they, they got absorbed in this experience, and then they try to share it. Yeah. You know, and that trying to share it is usually is very often done in writing. Yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And a lot of, you know, again, a lot of the world’s great epic spiritual traditions is texts, like the Mahabharata. And the Ramayana, were both just sort of cognized, one by VEDA Vyasa, one by Val Miki. And they just wrote the whole thing down. And but they are supposedly supposedly represent real events that these guys were able to sort of tune into and cognize. So anyway, they’re probably hundreds of, of examples of this thing happening throughout the ages. And so there’s no reason why it should be any less valid or significant in our own contemporary time. I think so. Yeah. Yes. All right. So we’ve talked for an hour about, you know, some philosophical points, and about your history and everything leading up to a course of love. And we’ve alluded a little bit to what the emphasis of the course of love is, as opposed to the Course of Miracles and miracles. But it’s 700 pages long. And we I’m sure we haven’t done justice to it. So do you think it would be a good idea for us to spend a good portion of the remainder of our time laying out? What the course of love has to offer? what it’s all about?
Mari Perron: How about if I tell you what I love about it? Yeah, great. Yeah. Yeah, it’s, there’s certain things about it, that I love more than others. Because it’s true for all of us, you know, but the wholeheartedness was a big one. And I have a feeling with that, you know, more down to earth than a lot of things. And of course, back in 2001, when this first came out, nobody was talking about love, you know, it was amore, Eastern, and it was mindful. And it was I don’t know, this was very unusual, you know, now, I just I like people like Brene Brown, who talks about wholeheartedness and authenticity, so it’s got this, these certain things that have a flavor of bringing it back to the person. And, and that’s one I believe, wholeheartedness is that combining of, of everything. And one of my favorite quotes from of course, is be true to love. And you can’t fail to be true to yourself. And you can say it the other way around, be true to yourself, and you can’t fail to be true to love. One thing that I didn’t mention yet is that when a course of love was done, Jesus called me to be a companion. He said, I asked him and I, when I would, I always sort of wished he would give me practical answers. So but it especially when I was done with the book, you know, I thought maybe he’d say what to do with it. But he said, be a companion to those willing to leave hell behind. And I had trouble with that for a long time until I began to see hell as not being who you are. Like, that’s the hellish part of life. So, you know, be a companion to those willing to be who they are. who they truly are. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So who are we truly? Is it something that can be described?
Mari Perron: Well, I, I’m really fascinated by our humanity, you know, by it’s like, this doesn’t show up as the same thing in everyone. It’s, you know, the divine as showing up as Mari, you know, and the divine showing up as Rick so it’s as we go on in the books, in the treatises, there’s a treatise on the personal self, where we begin to hear a little bit more about who we are in our humanity. And you know, Jesus says, I love your your hair, your eyes, the shape of your skull, you know, it’s this, this bringing back of the love end of our tinder hurts. There’s a whole chapter on tenderness and the time of tenderness. And so there’s a great range of acceptance of feelings. And most of them are of the, you know, gentle, and loving feelings. But as we progress and move into the dialog, so there’s this like a demarcation line between, I see it, and partially because it was one of the other times I was given a directive I was receiving. So there is a course of law. And then there’s the treatises which have four treatises, a treatise on the art of thought, a treatise on the nature of unity and its recognition, a treatise on the personal self, and then a treatise on the new. So when we get to it, when we were coming in between a treatise on personal self and treatise on the new, Jesus said, I had to quit everything that I was doing, in terms of I was, you know, working on editing then of the what I’d already received, I was meeting with a course of love group already, it started right away. And I had to leave that behind to be totally in the new. And so there’s this whole, this is what Jesus calls the new is very undefinable, you know, and it’s just, but it’s sort of moving us from the concentration before, which is really about getting rid of the old, which is like, you know, it’s like scraping paint to get rid of all the things that we’ve been conditioned to our whole lives. And then as you moved to the new, it’s more like putting on the new paint and just, you know, you’re getting fresher. So that is, and I just fell in love. That was my favorite part of the book. Most of the time it is. But it talks about the beginning of creating a new world and how that future is yet to be predicted that there’s no there’s no real plan for this, this we’re going into a new time it talks about the people being born into Christ consciousness, a new sort of consciousness that they wanted to learn directly, because this was all about this movement to being in very direct contact, and knowing the divine in us as us. So. So now, instead of telling you the parts I really loved about those, I’ve just kind of given it a quick one. And then but the dialogues, I loved all the dialogues, I know in that journal, in some of my journal entries, I found things saying, Well, I didn’t really get it until, until the dialogue, I was working too hard, you know, it was like I was, there was this. And, but once it got to the dialogues, it was like everything opened up, and it’s what happens with dialogue in the sense of being in communication. And, you know, like, you and I are in communication, there’s more of that sense with everything that that comes in the dialogues and, and also there becomes a greater acceptance of all of our humanity, even things, even feeling things that we don’t think we add to feel, you know, we’ve been so burdened by this thought that, you know, we are these thoughts and teachings. For instance, here’s one I can give you. I, I still get nervous public speaking, that’s not my forte. And so the old idea of ego is that if, if you’re nervous, you still have an ego. Okay, so I’ve been told these things, you know, over many years, and people, I mean, very tender hearted people have been told, that’s your ego, because they’re anxious. Any feeling a loss that wasn’t bland and Bane? Or was the ego in those communities? And so what I am very excited about when we’re in the dialogues is is this acceptance of even feelings like anger? You know, it’s like, we don’t have to have an ego or a false self or not know that we’re in union. That feeling anger doesn’t mean that we have fallen out of anything. It means that usually for me, it means I have not been true to myself. That’s usually when I get angry. I haven’t been true to myself. And so, but anyway, um, What I love about it is because I knew so many people who’d experienced so much pain with the old way of talking about it.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I, you know, that I think what you’re alluding to here, and I think you’ve addressed it in some of your writings is there’s a tendency, and I don’t know about maybe, of course, in miracles also in the sort of Neo Advaita area, to dismiss all this human stuff, you know, like feelings as, as a losery and is not worthy of our attention or consideration. And you know, and it can end up in a rather cold heartedness. Oh, you know, your baby died, man, just an illusion, the baby didn’t exist anyway. Or, you know, the baby’s in a better place or whatever, without really engaging in the human feelings that would naturally accompany such such an event. And, you know, and there’s, there’s a lot of teachings, which emphasize over and over and over again, that, you know, there really is no, you’re not a person, there is no person, you know, the sense that there is a person is part of the ignorance. And, you know, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, Francis Benedum, if you’ve watched any of his interviews, of course, you’re a person, you’re not just only a person who has more, more to you than that. It’s like saying to a wave, of course, your wave, you know, there you are, you’re just not only a wave, you’re also this ocean. There’s a bit there’s a deeper, broader dimension, but it doesn’t that broader dimension doesn’t negate the individual dimension. In fact, there’s a whole thing we could go into about the personal and impersonal aspects of God, even God has a personal aspect as well as an impersonal aspect.
Mari Perron: Yes, yes. So. So those I just felt those were the things that were most needed being said, you know, the acceptance of feelings, acceptance of our personhood, and there’s a wonderful, wonderful sections on creativity. He uses creativity to talk about some things, but it’s like inviting back, you know, our, and I think creative creativity and godliness, creativity and divinity, creativity and soulfulness, you know, they all go together so much. And so, great credence given to our our ability to be creative, and to be creators. And there’s a wonderful, wonderful section on very short, but about the way of Mary. And so the feminine, I really think the whole of a course of love is leading into the feminine feminine energies. And the idea of Mary comes in here with Mary having birth Jesus. And that, because we’re doing this birthing now we’re doing this birthing of the new, we’re birthing ourselves a new, we’re birthing a new time. And I mean, I’m excited to be part of this time. And, but it’s an so this idea of Mary gives us an incarnational side of things that what and that other example of what we’re here to do, we’re here to birth the divine into the world. So it all and that also the way of Mary, I’m sorry, I’m probably being terribly ungood interviewing, I’m jumping around too much. But the the way of Mary also addresses those who aren’t called to do, and I don’t think it’s only addresses what those who aren’t called to do, you know, how people can feel like, if they don’t have a calling, if they don’t have some particular thing to do. And they feel really bad about that, you know, they’re kind of always waiting for it and, and a way of Mary accepts those who are not called to do and there’s a, you know, like the old anchor SS and the women were anchor us as back in Christianity and mystical, it was sort of a mystical state. But we’re told that those are the way of Mary anchor this new reality. And I believe that, that what is happening as we begin to get this influx is more it’s almost like, to me a collaboration, we’re collaborating with the divine to create the No, no. And it’s different. You know, it’s not my sister doesn’t understand this. You know, there are, you’re like you are Jesus calls us for renders of the new, we are forerunners of the new and it can be a difficult position to be in. But as we actually see that we’re creating new states of being. So you know, as I received a course of love, I read, I created a new state of being in myself. And we do that we recreate these new states of being and then we anchor them in the world. So what somebody said was Reality is no longer our reality we have that create that reality.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I often feel it in my own life that it’s like, I just this metaphor just came to mind. But like, when you paint your painting a wall, you have to dip the roller or the brush in the paint, and then you apply it to the wall. And after a while it runs out of paint. And so you dip it again, and you apply it again, I kind of feel like that’s how my days go. And I happen to have a meditation practice. But there’s other ways people can do this. But I always feel like I’m just getting infused with sort of the divine energy, if you want to call it that, and then spend my day applying it in some way, you know, and then get another infusion and then apply it. And I don’t do like that metaphor. Does that sort of fit in what you experience? Absolutely, yes, I do. Like you spend your time in the cabin in the morning, you know, and, and then I’m sure you derive deep sustenance from that, and then you’re able to transmit that or convert that into something that others can benefit from.
Mari Perron: Yes, and, but it’s also I mean, this is kind of a newer idea to me, but it is also creating, you know, it’s like just being there. And meditation, just being there sitting is creating this new state of being. And it just, it suddenly felt different to me in the last year or so that this is we’re getting these pockets of this new state of being all over the place. And that’s really kind of what’s happening in the world. And we do anchor something, we anchor something by allowing them and by, you know, being, you know, however we nurture that, and ourselves, and others so.
Rick Archer: So do you feel like the world is headed for a much brighter time because there’s some new state of being or some age of enlightenment or something dawning and have Is there anything in the Course of Miracles about that that predicts it or describes it,
Mari Perron: there is a wonderful line, again, I can’t read,
Rick Archer: I said Course of Miracles, I met course of love. Either one,
Mari Perron: there actually is one in A Course in Miracles about how I wish I could remember, but anyway, it’s a beautiful quote about how Heaven and Earth will be as one basically. And, you know, I think people take that can take that to be, the earth will pass away for this combining to happen. But with that, combined with a course of love, I take it that Heaven and Earth can come together. I do think that these structures that the ego has created, you know, to protect and conceal and deceive, and all of that, they’re going to have to come down, probably before we get better. But
Rick Archer: and when you say structures, you don’t just mean in the individual you mean in the society, economic structures and political structures and stuff like that.
Mari Perron: Yes, so we might, you know, there’s certainly nothing that says we won’t have a harder time before it gets better.
Rick Archer: The Darkest Hour was always before the dawn. So I was gonna actually ask you, if you had any commentary on the current political scene, but you’ve just sort of made one you kind of feel like things are always well unwisely put in and the way things are going could very well result in the kind of you know, crash and burn and or Phoenix like decision, destruction and reemergence of of a better world or something.
Mari Perron: I think the deception has to come to light, you know, and the way that we’re, we’ve been deceived and are deceiving ourselves, and letting ourselves be deceived by the structures that are, I mean, I think that has to come to life. And and I think it is, this is a perfect opportunity for that to come to light for, for what is not kind, you know, not humane. And one of the things that I have seen because, I mean, we really are just beginning my husband and I beginning to recover from our financial decline that started when I left my job, you know, and we were on the Obamacare plan. Okay. And that went up like it doubled in this last year. And anyway, but when we first went on that, it was like, no one seemed to understand what it felt like not to be able to afford health care. And no one understood how difficult that was made by the program and this sort of thing. And it’s like, and I don’t mean this in it, you know, in any way like, I’m glad this is happening to people. It’s just that I believe so many people are beginning to see the effects of this unkindness, this is the way I call it the unkindness, you know, to leave people without being able to be insured or to cut or to have the cost so high, they can’t be insured, or to, you know, there’s so many things that have gone on in the last, you know, really since the recession, even despite, you know, our Obama, my years that have made the world harder and harder for people. Yeah, and more people are feeling it. And so the only good I can see in that is that is that we all have a sense of what the poor have been going through for a long time, and a greater sense and a more personal, you know, because if you if you’ve never been there, it’s really hard to have that compassion like for for those who need to be seen and heard, and yeah, yeah,
Rick Archer: and, and even some of the poorest people in our country are kind of wealthy by comparison with a couple of billion people in the world, you know, so they really, and we’ve all heard these statistics, how the top 100 wealthiest people in the world possess more wealth than the bottom 80% or some such thing, you know. So there’s this great inequity, and you know, tremendous suffering, while others are have so much more than they could possibly need. I’m reminded of a quote from Martin Luther King at this point, which is the the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. And hopefully, it’s like, when you start getting into political topics like this, you know, your gets very controversial, and people become very polarized. But I think what you’re saying here is really apt, which is important, which is that, you know, and it kind of connects with your whole theme about the heart and awakening of the heart, is that, you know, we really need to feel the suffering of others. I mean, that’s a basic tenant of just about every religion. And if we’re really feeling that, how could we possibly allow so much suffering to continue in the world? There’s something wrong with this picture, you know, that needs to be remedied? Yes. Okay, we’re going to continue talking about what’s in a course of love. But uh, so, Maria from Boulder, sent in a question, I do want to ask people’s questions as they come in. And this is kind of related to something I was asking in the beginning, she said, is the Jesus that you channeled a being separate from yourself or simply an aspect of your own Deep Mind? How do you know?
Mari Perron: Well, I would guess, it’s a good way to put it, but, you know, it would be like having a conversation with each other. And there are two voices. And even if that voice comes into me, there is an awareness of the two voices. So yes, I believe Jesus is a being and that the Christ in a course of love language, the part of Jesus that is universal because of being you know, that oneness with the Creator, is like I say, that’s called Christ consciousness that we’re walking around with Jesus and his, but we’re rocking around with Christ consciousness and as I just as often call it, you know, a spark of God, that are our divinity. But yes, I did feel Jesus as a in that even. Of course, you know, when I’m receiving a course of love, this is stuff I didn’t know. Right? There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know, I always use the example of the word treatises, because I went and looked it up. I thought I knew what it meant, but I wasn’t sure what’s the treatise, you know? So it was not me as I know myself for sure. But I’ve had conversations with Jesus. I had a lot of conversations with Jesus for the first five years after a course of love was published. And then he told me it was time to start relying on myself and I didn’t have as many with him, but he’ll pop in now. And you know, when I’m journaling, very distinct voice. And I know other people who hear from Jesus and their Jesus is not my Jesus, you know, because we’re always different in relationship. This is a thing. It’s like you talking to me are different than you talking to your wife. Right? You know, so we’re all different in relationship and that’s to be prized, you know? not to be used as a, you know? Well, I can’t be then because it’s different here and different there. No. But union in relationship is a is a huge teaching of a person. Yeah.
Rick Archer: One comment I just want to make is that, you know, you strike me as being very, this is my personal editorial opinion here. They strike me as being very sincere and sweet and genuine. I’ve spoken with some people who are into channeling, both on and off BatGap. Who, I don’t know, it’s like, I have a feeling there’s a lot of them, there are a lot of ego there, which is undoubtedly filtering or altering or coloring, whatever it is they’re channeling. In fact, I sometimes suspect that they’re not channeling anybody, they’re just kind of tapping into some level of creativity and within themselves and coming out with a whole bunch of stuff. So, I think you No, you’re an example of someone who’s kind of sweetness and innocence. Make her a reliable source for this kind of wisdom. It’s like, I don’t get the feeling like you’re really in the way, you know, of what’s what’s coming through.
Mari Perron: Yes, I really had hoped Jesus was going to expire me to write something on my own. You know what I mean? It’s like, that’s what I kind of thought, but I hoped it would be I mean, I would do anything, but it was like, I was hoping and I was writing during this time, but it was awful, you know, trying too hard. And I was writing this awful stuff. And, but that was really what I hoped I had no aspirations to being, you know, a channel or a scribe or anything like that. But I do. I do like, being called the first receiver, partially because it also includes everyone else. Be in being receivers. And also, you know, I too, I have met Pete, you know. I really didn’t like having my work lumped with people who would help you find your cat, you know, or you know, it there. There’s a reverential part, I guess.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah. So in other words, somebody who might help you find your cat or help help the police solve a crime or something as its value. But they’re like psychics, they’re sort of not necessarily picking up on anything profound. They’re just sort of picking up on some information, which you could get through your ordinary senses if you were in the right place.
Mari Perron: And it’s like, I all those things are, are fine, but they’re not the same, you know, they’re not the same as this. And to just lump it all, you know, it’s sort of like anything that sort of extra sensory gets sometimes put in this one category.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, that’s like saying, Put lumping all tie all forms of music together, you know, and saying that half the sex, the Sex Pistols are the same as Beethoven or something. Does it sometimes amaze you when you like, Look at this 700 pages and think holy cow, you know, how in the world did all this come out of through me?
Mari Perron: Yes, it does amaze me. And it was, I mean, I think it changed me so much. I mean, I was called to an orientation of solitude afterwards, I felt briefly sort of elated. And then it’s actually about living in the world. Again, you know, what, after you’ve done something like this, you know, being able to, I understand why people leave. And I always kind of had this fantasy, you know, of, of amongst life or something, but I am married and I love my family. And there that’s that love is informed my spiritual spirituality tremendously, too. So I, you know, got the next best thing with this cabin in the woods. But it was very, very, it’s hard for me. Like my sensibilities changed. Like, I can’t go shopping for an afternoon, I shop as quickly as I can, I can. I can’t take noise for very long, you know, it’s it’s so the effects on me are in I mean, I still normal, you know, I mean, I talked myself as ordinary, you know, I’ll go, you know, have a drink now. And then or something, you know, and I just can’t take too much. It’s like I, and it’s really sort of the feeling was like, it was so much and it’s still so much that I just need all this by time to hold it.
Rick Archer: Sure. Yeah, you became more refined through the process. And therefore your tastes became more refined and your interest became more refined and you know,
Mari Perron: That’s a nice way to put it. Yeah, that’s why I like refined. That’s, that’s lovely,
Rick Archer: thank you Sure. It’s like, I don’t know, metaphors keep coming to mind. But like, if we have a hammer and chisel or something, we can break rock with it. But if the chisel is really refined to the point where it becomes a scalpel, then it’s no longer really suited for breaking rocks, you know, it needs to do more delicate tasks. Thank you, I like. So what more do you want to tell us about of course in love, if if, you know, have an opportunity here to let people know a little bit more?
Mari Perron: Well, I would just kind of I started on the end of learning, and then kind of dropped it. But I think that’s when I remember one time, you know, somebody say What do you mean, you never read anymore? You know, what do you mean, the end of learning. And I, it’s sort of like a, it’s the beginning of coming to know, the end of learning is the beginning of coming to know. And it’s not about anything specific. And that’s the really hard thing. You know, it’s sort of like, okay, I want it’s about the knowing itself, and that it’s a hard thing to talk about. But it’s about the knowing itself to begin to trust in your own knowing this is a really huge thing. And then I absolutely love that Jesus and sundial, so that we go from teachers and learners, to sharing in unity, and to being in dialogue with each other. And this is a fact I watched some of your talks, and I watched the one where you were talking at Berkeley recent or wherever you were talking about in Berkeley. And I loved you because you weren’t trying to teach me anything. You were sharing who you are your curiosity, your ideas, you know? And so this is sort of
Rick Archer: see me 30 years ago. What were you doing that I was teaching, and I was talking about stuff that I hadn’t experienced, you know, and, you know, being rather proselytizing, and, you know, it was probably a pain in the ass for many people.
Mari Perron: Okay, you get it. Yeah. So that’s what I’m saying is, I love this movie, I love this move that’s being made. And people first will still try, you know, to do teaching and to do things the old way. But I think the more we move, to dialogue, and it’s kind of a time honored thing to be in communication. But also with this understanding that this is happening to more people in the world that we’re becoming these conduits, the more we share, I just had this wonderful thing happened to me the other day, I was sharing with a guy from, there’s a group in Santa Fe, there’s about 60 groups around the country now. And I haven’t I’ve met with the ones I’ve visited, I don’t see teaching and learning going on, you know, there’ll be somebody who kind of facilitates, but then people, you know, are very lovely, lovely about sharing. But I was telling them that what I’ve been hearing lately is only do what you want to do, it’s like I’m getting keep getting this guy only do what you want to do. And it’s kind of contrary, you know, to to, to what most of us love, you know, they do what you want to do. And so I was still surviving over this. And, and I have actually been, you know, contemplating that because then of course it cause you What do you want to do? But he said to me? Well, that sounds like A Course in Miracles. There’s this chapter in the Manual for Teachers that talks about trust, and I think that’s in there. And so I went to it. And so it’s, and I’d forgotten this, that it has a kind of lays out this, like you were talking about some of the Eastern traditions, they lay this things out. And when you get to the certain point, it says, And now the teacher of God does what he wants to do. It’s as simple as that. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you know, so these things are always kind of combining but that sharing, you know, when I share with people, they almost always share with me something that will lead me to something else, you know, or something that I need to hear in that moment. So I really am excited about dialogue and, and always excited about things that remind me how much I love the Course in Miracles and that they are kind of one piece I I think when people in fact it’s really wonderful. Now there are some groups that are combining, they’ll take passages of a person miracles and passages have a course of love and have that at their as their focus. And it’s incredible how much differently people begin to hear A Course in Miracles. When is combined with a course Love. So
Rick Archer: is there a certain faction of Course in Miracles people who see you as some kind of a renegade?
Mari Perron: Yes. Yes, there is. And usually, it’s kind of fun that I usually get warning, you know, like some of you say, well don’t read this review on Amazon, or some of these people who like to criticize will email a lot of people. And so somebody was like, Don’t read this from so and so because they’ll hurt your feelings. Yeah, I don’t know, that would hurt my feelings. But you know, I’d rather not read them. Yeah. So people are kind that way to do that. But I’m really, really excited that A Course in Miracles community is beginning to accept a course of love, because this is clearly an audience that Jesus intended. You know, he said, I prepared them, I would prepare them with a Course of Miracles. And, and now, you know, so I don’t know how much you know, public speaking and that kind of thing I do. But I will be going to the Course of Miracles conference, in this time next year. And I will do everything I can to be sure that that we can bring. I mean, I can’t do everything. Of course, I can’t change people’s minds, but I will do what I can. Yeah. on that. And, and I am very I wait for you asked
Rick Archer: me. Well, I was I was wondering, you know, in the beginning, we were talking about how Adi Shanti talks about head, heart and gut realizations. And there are other parallels to that and other spiritual teachings. And I was wondering whether you think there might be just as a course in love is sort of a sequel to A Course in Miracles. I was wondering where they think there might be another whole thing that might come out either through you or somebody else that would take it a major step further.
Mari Perron: I certainly wouldn’t. Wouldn’t be surprised? Yeah, I think we’re always we’re always growing, we’re always evolving into further realizations.
Rick Archer: Yeah, so I’m glad you said that, because I wanted to ask you a little bit more about this end of learning thing. And, you know, I feel that I’m always growing and evolving into further realizations as you just phrased it. And so in that sense, I feel like I’m, there’s no end to learning. But I guess when you say and learning, you’re sort of meaning and in the sense of taking stuff from authorities that we’re not necessarily experiencing ourselves and that we that we really need to put into that kind of dynamic and, and just sort of really know things in our hearts directly and cognitively, I mean, you know, sort of, viscerally directly. experientially, is that what you mean by that?
Mari Perron: Yeah, that was very good phrasing. Okay, thank you. Yeah.
Rick Archer: There’s somebody who sent in a question, Michael cantos, he said, and this forget could perhaps be thought of in a more broad way. He said, Any advice for those of us looking forward to meeting with you in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, on February 25. Thank you, Michael center for contempt for temporary mysticism. And we can broaden that out to say, you know, people all over the world who are listening to this, who may or may not end up meeting with you. Any advice for them?
Mari Perron: I have begun to you know, I really didn’t be far because of the groups, you know, that were eager to form. But I began to, to say to people, why don’t you just read it once, just read it straight through without, you know, applying without, you know, going to a group without applying any thought or effort anything, just let it enter, you just let it wash over you. And so, of course, you can do that anytime. It doesn’t mean that you have to do that the first time. But if you’ve already read it, he might read it the second time, you know, if you’ve read it in a group, maybe the second time just reading it through and letting it have this begin to have this flow that pulls you in. But that was one thing I was I was about to say when I said all that you asked me I am very thrilled about this is my last presentation this year is going to be in Philadelphia at the center Center for Contemporary mysticism. So one day I’ll be speaking with course of love people, and they also am going to do I get to do an hour of you know, the more broader tough fact of mysticism and it’s the first time that I’ve been I’ve had the opportunity to do that. So I’m looking forward to both of those very nice,
Rick Archer: what kind of things you’re going to say about mysticism.
Mari Perron: Well I’m going to talk about all the things that drew me to mystery. You know, I don’t, I always try to speak of things in a way that lets everybody else know, that probably they have already felt these mystical tendencies in themselves. Because it feels to me like, you know, it seems too hard. And I know, you know, as a young person entering spirituality, you know, I couldn’t afford to go to teachings, and, you know, all of that, and probably why I already said, My books are my friends, but I think we’re all natural. Mystics are born mystics, and we probably have memories of mystical experiences. And if we can bring those forward in ourselves, we can begin to have that sense of air. We’re not, we’re not different, you know, they’re a separate category of people necessarily call them mistakes.
Rick Archer: It’s funny, because when you’re younger, you used to love to read mystery novels, and you wanted to be a writer of mystery novels. And you ended up doing this, and in a way, you’re writing about mystery, you know, but it just has this whole spiritual orientation. Now,
Mari Perron: that’s very different. And you know why the main reason I wanted to write mysteries was because I knew even then I never wanted to promote myself. You know, it’s like, I wanted to be this famous writer, but I didn’t want to, you know, have to be selling myself all the time. And so I thought these, they were all these series mysteries at the time. So I thought if I started a series mystery, there just be people there waiting for my next book. And I just have to write, I wouldn’t have to do anything else.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So you said that this, this presentation you’re going to give in Philadelphia is your last one of the year, but it’s only February, you’re not going to give any more all year?
Mari Perron: Yes, I was at the Course in Miracles conference in Vegas in April this year. And I’ve been traveling with your
Rick Archer: meeting last year. Yeah, last year. So 16.
Mari Perron: And I decided I would give it a year, I this trying a more public light. And so I’ve visited with a lot of groups and, and that kind of thing. And so this will be my final one. And I’m going to take a pause, whether it’ll end up being a whole year, I don’t know. But I am going to take a little pause. And because you know, the whole message of a course of love is you have to be who you are, yeah, you have to be who you are. And so when I get too busy, I feel like I lose a part of myself. And so I’m going to give myself some time and just kind of feel into what the next things will be
Rick Archer: in order to enjoy is rather than sort of flying all over giving a talk here and a talk there, you might enjoy doing a retreat every now and then where you’re just in a really beautiful retreat kind of setting and people come there and you spend the whole weekend with him where everybody can really settle in.
Mari Perron: Yes, you know, I haven’t even really thought about these things, different ways that this could be done. And so I’ll take some time and do that. And I know a lot of people who I’m sure will give me some good ideas. And yeah,
Rick Archer: you know, not now the thing is, there have been some, some friends of mine do these kind of webinars using zoom, which is a certain kind of software. And they have, you know, 2030 participants who are scattered around the world, and they have a nice little thing for an hour or two with these people in the comfort of their living room just says you’re sitting now. So that that kind of thing would also be a way of connecting with people without having a race around.
Mari Perron: That’s one of the things that you know, I’ve done with this interview with you, which is arguably my this is my greatest exposure. So I really appreciate that, that I could do that from the comfort of my home. But I bought about three mics and all these different things to get it you know, set up right to get what worked for me, because this is I didn’t realize this is one way I could share it might be more comfortable. Yeah. Well, hopefully it’s a larger audience to you know, you can talk to people all over the world, which is amazing. Ya know, it’s neat. We have many translations, the French translation is done now, the whole book first one of the whole book, and we have a very active group beginning of the Spanish translation, or it’s not actually it’s almost it’s done the first round of it is done. So they’re refining it now and getting ready to publish. It’s being translated into Norwegian Swedish. I’m going to forget something and that’s that’s
Rick Archer: in Japanese. Wow, that’s great. Um, here’s a question for you just to jump back into the fray here for a second um, does this Jesus or did does a course of love? Discuss reincarnation at all. And the reason for that is I have a question about it that some sent in but I wonder if that’s even on your in your lexicon?
Mari Perron: It’s really not. Okay. It would probably, I have never really been interested in it. It’s not in across the class, I don’t really have much to say you could probably answer better than I. But in terms of a course of love, no, it doesn’t say anything specifically about reincarnation.
Rick Archer: Okay, the reason I have someone from France send in a question about whether as souls we kind of evolve up through various species to higher and higher expressions, you know, and, and eventually become enlightened beings. But we don’t need to discuss that if it’s not really your bailiwick. Yeah. Alrighty, well, I hope you’ve been enjoying this, I have any final thoughts you want to express, the only you have to be final if we get come up with more ideas, but I don’t want to just belabor this. But if you have something you really haven’t had a chance to say that you want to leave people with? Or you want to be sure to get in?
Mari Perron: You know, I, I don’t know what I’ve said. That happens to me too, you know, it’s like, well, gee, I don’t know what I’ve talked about. So I’m probably better to quit while I’m ahead
Rick Archer: without resorting to memory, just intuitively, what do you feel moved to say by way of a wrap up point.
Mari Perron: Oh, just to encourage everyone to look at their lives with the eyes of their heart. And to know that you have a greater knowing probably than you allow yourself to get in touch with. And let yourself begin to get in touch with that. And and then let it expand into the world.
Rick Archer: Beautiful. Okay, I’m gonna ask you to do that. That was nice. Okay, so let me just make a couple of wrap up points. I’ve been speaking with Mary Perone. And as always, I’ll create a page on batgap.com, that will link to her website and her book and anything else she wants me to put there. And you’ll be able to get in touch with her and so on. This interview is part of an ongoing series, which has been going on for about seven years now, which I hope will continue for many years to come. If you would like to stay in touch, go to batgap.com. And you can sign up to be notified by email each time there’s a new one. And also, you’ll see this at a glance menu, if you click on that, you’ll kind of see us a quick summary of everything that you’ll find on the site. Things such as signing up to for the audio, podcast and everything like that. So so go to BatGap Calm. Next week, I’ll be speaking with someone named Nicola Amadora. And the week after that, Dwayne Elgin, and Anon, it’s really, it’s really a joy, getting to know these people each week and talking to them. I love it. And I hope all of you are enjoying it, too. So thanks, Mari.
Mari Perron: Well, thank you. And can I please my publisher by telling people that they can find the book? Yes, please. Yes. It’s available, of course on Amazon. But at bookstores, too. If you can’t find it there, ask them you
Rick Archer: have a copy on hold up there. And I’ll be linking to the Amazon page where your book can be purchased. Also, I’ll be linking to that from your BatGap page. There it is.
Mari Perron: Here. That is? Yes. And there is. Now Rick benefited from this. And I didn’t even think of it because it’s so new. I’d kind of forgotten
Rick Archer: that was a great little thing. It’s a resource. It’s an overview of written by somebody else. But it’s a nice little synopsis. Just
Mari Perron: it I think, also for people who read it and would like to introduce it to a friend, this would be a nice
Rick Archer: place to start.
Mari Perron: The website, can I tell you, anything? Sure. There’s two websites, www dot a course of love.org. And also www data center for a course of love.org. And there’s different things and on each of them. I would hope you you might visit both I do a blog. There’s also on the center site, there’s a concordance that can help you find into a search facility which is what I use more than the concordance do I want to follow a theme like you know, the well of spirit I can go in there and tell him what well of spirit and and find all the references to that. So I think that’s something people really love to hear about. And then I am going to be in Philadelphia, you can find that out on the events page, of course of love’s website, and that will be February the 25th and 26th.
Rick Archer: Good and I’ll link to these websites. From your page on batgap.com, in case somebody is listening to this while they’re driving or something, they can’t really stop and write that down. But just go to batgap.com. And you’ll see Mary’s page. And if you’re listening to this three years from now, the page will be, you know, buried under many other interviews, but you can always do a search in the search box. And we also have a like an alphabetical index of all the guests and you can easily find her page and go to her websites and link to her book, all that stuff. Alright, well, Thanks, Mary. I really appreciated it. Great getting to know you. And
Mari Perron: same here. I heard great things about you, too. It’s like oh, Richard, I mean, Archer there, you know.
Rick Archer: Thanks. And thanks to those who’ve been listening or watching. We’ll see you next week.
Mari Perron: Absolutely. Thank you. You’re welcome, everyone. Sure
