Why I Wrote The Disappearance of the Universe ..............

HOW ADVANCED FORGIVENESS CAN LEAD TO .... 5

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE UNIVERSE................ 5

An interview with Gary R. Renard................................... 5

I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO ................... 12

Discussion Group Sessions............................................... 14

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Why I Wrote The Disappearance of the Universe
By

Gary R. Renard (www.GaryRenard.com )

On December 21, 1992, I was meditating in a chair at my house in Maine. I did this

every day and had gotten pretty good at it, achieving absolute stillness with no interfering

thoughts present in my mind. When I was finished, I opened my eyes as usual, not

knowing that my life was about to change forever. Sitting there on my couch was an

attractive looking couple who would eventually identify themselves as “disciples of

Jesus.” Over the course of the next 9 years and 17 discussions they would tell me many

interesting and amazing things, not the least of which was that in one of their incarnations

together they were none other than Saint Thomas and Saint Thaddaeus, two of the

original disciples of “J,” as they called Jesus. They said that despite what many people

think, those lifetimes as disciples were not their final ones. They also told me a great deal

about spirituality and talked about their personal experiences with Y’shua, his name

before translation. They spoke from a Jewish perspective, noting that there was no such

thing as Christianity two thousand years ago and that it was never J’s intention to start a

religion. Wanting to set the record straight, they also explained about 20 Sayings to me

from “The Gospel of Thomas” and spoke about the suppression of the truth by the

church. They then went on to share the secrets of the universe and why we exist, and

taught me the way to return to God, which they described as the form of “advanced

forgiveness” that is also taught in the modern spiritual guide, “A Course in Miracles.”

Bluntly clarifying the Course’s principles and exactly how to apply them to our everyday

lives, they made a strong, clear connection between the Voice of “The Gospel of

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Thomas” and the Voice of the Course. They emphasized that Christianity got J wrong,

and that they had come to me “as symbols whose words will help facilitate the

disappearance of the universe.”

Let me emphasize that events in the book are my true experiences. I’m a messenger.

That’s why I wrote the book and also pass along the details of the teachings in my

workshops. The appearances by Arten and Pursah, which were Thaddaeus and Thomas’

names in their final lifetimes and which they now use as teachers stopped, at least

temporarily, on December 21, 2001, nine years to the day since they first appeared to me.

During that nine years they spoke hundreds of quotations from “A Course in Miracles”

which are included in the book. I also tape recorded all of our conversations, except for

the first, for the purpose of accuracy.

The book is having a major impact on people and their journey home to God, which

is actually an awakening from our dream of separation from Him. By always following

the masters’ instructions, I’ve never ceased to be amazed at how easy it was to get the

book finished, published and available to the public. The first five printings sold quickly

and at this writing the book has been sold to a major publisher, Hay House, which took

over November 1, 2004. I’m thrilled to know that what Arten and Pursah did for me is

happening for others, helping to accelerate our spiritual progress to the point where the

lessons of many lifetimes (which they said are really illusory dreams) are learned in just

one lifetime, rendering many future incarnations unnecessary.

The enthusiasm that is being expressed for the book has been very gratifying. I’ll

always be grateful to Arten and Pursah, and as far as my many new experiences are

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concerned, all I can say is that if you told me on the morning of December 21, 1992 that

all this was going to happen, I never would have believed you!

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HOW ADVANCED FORGIVENESS CAN LEAD TO
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE UNIVERSE

An interview with Gary R. Renard ( www.GaryRenard.com )

By Paul Morris Segal

Gary R. Renard is the author of The Disappearance of the Universe; Straight Talk
about Illusions, Past lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness.
Amongst many amazing revelations in The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary and
the two ascended masters who appear before him, share deep understanding of the
role and practice of forgiveness as well as new insights into the powerful self-study
course, A Course in Miracles.

You write in The Disappearance of the Universe (DU) that you heard the words,
‘Renounce the world and the ways of the world. Make them meaningless to you.’
How does one go about doing that? How are you going with that?

All of the right minded ideas from the Holy Spirit become incorporated into an attitude; a
way of being in the world that is not of the world. As explained by the two ascended
master teachers in the book, The Disappearance of the Universe, named Arten and
Pursah, who were actually Saint Thaddaeus and Saint Thomas in another incarnation, that
particular teaching is not about giving up the world physically, it' s about loosening your
psychological attachment to it. So you' re really asking about one of many ideas that all fit
together into an interlocking chain of forgiveness. Being less attached and eventually
unattached to the world is part of it. I think I'
m making good progress.

Many people say they have experienced great peace while reading A Course In
Miracles (ACIM). How can someone translate the peace when reading ACIM into
peace though the day?

True peace is found through advanced forgiveness, and at times when people feel angry
and frustrated are the perfect opportunities to do it. The Course is not meant to be a feel
good philosophy, although people will certainly feel good sometimes while reading it.
But the real goal of the Course is to undo the blocks to the awareness of love's presence,
and those blocks are undone by forgiveness.

The Course teaches that the means of the Atonement is forgiveness. If you take care of
the means, forgiveness, the end will take care of itself. And along the way you will find
that the day will come when those things that would ordinarily upset all of a sudden
don't!

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What do you like about ACIM?

I love ACIM because it' s a self-study course, not a religion, that is done at the level of the
mind between the student and Jesus. Thus it' s not necessary to have the agreement of
others in order to practice it. It's not about changing the dream world or converting
others. It'
s about regaining the true power of the mind, awakening from the dream and
returning to God.

Do you know people who have been enlightened in this life (through engaging ACIM
or otherwise)?

Perhaps a couple. It is not my place to name them, nor would they name themselves. If
someone is truly enlightened then they would have no need for others to think they are
enlightened. If it'
s just a dream then why would they care?

How does advanced forgiveness work?

Without going into the details of how to do it, which are spelled out in the book and
summarized on P. 256, but requires the background provided first, advanced
forgiveness exercises the incredible power of the mind to choose between spirit or the
ego, and by choosing the thought system of the Holy Spirit, enables Him to heal our
archaic unconscious guilt we feel for separating from God. Only then is the mind freed
from the need to reincarnate, because a hiding place is no longer needed from God. This
is a deep guilt that people are not even aware of, but is the cause of all the world' s
substitute problems for the one real problem of a sense of separation from God.

Exercise in Forgiveness

The next time someone makes you feel angry or even just uncomfortable, see them
as a figure in a dream that you are dreaming. And since you are the dreamer, they
really "exist" only in your mind. Thus they are not really doing anything. They are
playing a part in YOUR dream. Thus you can say, "I made you up, so you are not
guilty. You are a symbol of what I secretly believed myself to be guilty of in my
unconscious mind without being aware of it. So I forgive you for what you haven't
really done, and thus I am the one who is really forgiven."

That way, you can experience that there's really only one of us, or one ego
appearing as many. And the only way to be forgiven and healed by the Holy Spirit is
to forgive those people who SEEM to be outside of you, but are not really there.

How can a person distinguish between the voice for God and the voice of the ego?

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The best way to achieve discernment is through a complete understanding of BOTH the
thought system of the ego and the thought system of the Holy Spirit. Once that is
achieved, it should not be difficult to say whether a thought you are hearing comes from
the ego or the Holy Spirit.

Experiencing an illusionary reality seems like a totally stupid thing to do. I don’t
know why a perfect pure creation would engage in such an activity. What do you
think?

Yes, I agree. As my teachers said, the world is a stupid place, because it was based on a
stupid idea. Fortunately, ACIM and DU show us the way out. As explained on Pages
135-136 of DU, such a question insists that the separation from God really occurred. Yet
the principle of the Atonement is that it didn' t. Thus we are striving to maintain a false
identity that doesn' t really exist, all the while insisting that it does. As the Course says,
"The ego' s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say, "I am not real." Yet you
are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone." (Text from ACIM, page 138)

ACIM seems to be such an all-encompassing process. Why is there a need for books
with further explanation?

When people first start reading ACIM, it may as well be written in a foreign language. I
doubt that I could have understood it if I didn't have help. I think that'
s true of just about
everyone. One of the purposes of The Disappearance of the Universe is that people will
be able to read it and then pick up ACIM and understand it better and have it speak much
more clearly to them, thus saving students a lot time.

The Course itself says that a chief aim of the miracle worker is to save time. The reports
that my publisher and I are getting confirm that' s what happening as a result of people
being able to understand the Course much better after reading DU.

If the illusion of the universe, the world and all mankind is a result of a thought a
part of God had about existing separate from God, then how can the separation and
the subsequent creation of the universe not have been created by God? Didn't God,
or a part of God have the first thought of separation from which all the rest was
made manifest?

No. Nowhere in ACIM does it ever say that Christ, which is One with God, ever
separated from God. In fact it says just the opposite. ACIM teaches that the full
awareness of the Atonement is that the separation never occurred. The Course says that
into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny mad idea of separation at which the Son
of God remembered not to laugh. And that' s all it ever was. Just one thought that was
contained within one tiny instant that was then immediately corrected by the Holy Spirit.
It was nothing. But we keep re-playing it in different forms and making it important and
thus real to ourselves.

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That' s where free Will comes in. The seeming separation, which only took place within
an illusory consciousness, was corrected immediately, but it'
s our choice as to when we
want to ACCEPT the Holy Spirit' s correction and thus awaken from the dream.

How are illusions made?

While it would take a long metaphysical discussion to answer that question, the short
answer is that the mind that made the entire illusory universe of time and space is, by
definition, outside of time and space. Thus time and space and all that seems to happen
within it are projections of the mind, like a holographic movie. It then appears that the
projection is real, and the source is hidden, like a movie projector is hidden in a theatre.
Your attention is diverted to the screen.

The ego keeps our attention on the screen by giving us a convincing illusion called the
body. It then fills the body's lifetime with problems of all sorts to keep our attention out
on the screen so we won' t go inside of the mind, where the answer to the one problem of
separation really is. The ego' s survival depends on us believing in the separation and
making it real through judgment and condemnation. But, as ACIM teaches, the ego
cannot survive without judgment.

Why are illusions made?

Illusions are made because we need a scapegoat to blame for the terrible, unconscious
guilt we feel for separating from God. In the false universe of separation there will
always be someone else to blame for all of our made up substitute problems, which
are cover ups for the one real problem of separation from God. Now our problems are
someone else' s fault and we project the unconscious guilt onto them. That'
s how we try to
deal with the guilt. But it doesn' t work. All it does is keep recycling it. You see that
dynamic in both individual relationships and international relationships.

The dream of illusion will persist to be an experience until the ego is undone. As the
Course says, "salvation is undoing." When the ego is undone, as was the case with Jesus
and Buddha, then the truth of the perfect oneness with Heaven will be all that'
s left.

Who makes the illusions?

There is only one ego mind, and this mind projects the one illusion of time and space
which then appears to happen at different times and places, even though the truth is it
happened all at once and is already over but for our acceptance of the truth. The truth is
God. Nothing else is true.

If what Arten and Pursah say is true, then their appearance is an illusion within an
illusion. Do you believe that what they say is accurate? Why?

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I believe that what they say is true because their words have led me to an experience of
God that tells me our Oneness with God is the truth and that anything that is not God is a
bad joke compared to what' s available.

It is the experience that we are at home in God that is the real answer to the false
experience that we are not. Intellectual answers will not suffice. That'
s why the Course at
one point says, "...there is no answer, only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let
theology delay you."

Would it be accurate for me to say, “What Arten and Pursah are saying could be
correct, though in Truth (the sense that all perception is temporary and part of an
illusion) they have never even said it?”

Yes, that would be accurate, and would ultimately apply to Jesus, Buddha and all
ascended masters.

You have been told quite a lot of information about the future and your path. Does
this make it easier to practice the principals of ACIM? Is it easier for you than for
other people because you have had these visits?

Maybe a little at times, but most of the time, no. Whatever you know about your past or
future, you still have to deal with what'
s happening right NOW. The things that appear to
happen now are the things I need to forgive. Our salvation always comes down to a
decision we are making right now.

While I was thinking of asking you a question about if God can speak with people, a
thought formed in my head, saying, ‘I am a loving God.’ Am I ‘right’ to believe that
it was God talking to me?

God does not speak in words. As my teachers explained, when someone thinks they are
hearing the Voice of God they are usually hearing the Voice of the Holy Spirit, which is
the Voice of our own Higher Self, mixed in with the thoughts of the ego. God has nothing
to do with the idea of separation and does not interact with illusions. If He did then that
would make the separation real, and there would no longer be the perfect oneness of
Heaven to return home to. God must not be capable of creating anything that is not
perfect, or else He Himself wouldn' t be perfect. Thus anything that is not perfect exists
only within the realm of the ego and God has nothing to do with it.

To have an experience of God is to have an experience of unspeakable love, which can

leave one in a speechless stupor of awe for hours.

What is the difference between God and the Holy Spirit?

God is beyond the understanding of the limited human mind, although we can have an
experience of His love. The Holy Spirit is our memory of God that we brought with us
into the dream of a false universe. The real Universe is God or Heaven, but the Holy

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Spirit is in our mind, the mind being holographic, and thus our memory of our true home
can never truly be lost. It'
s in the mind, waiting to be remembered. The way to remember
God, as ACIM teaches us, is to remove the blocks to the awareness of love' s presence by
practicing the Holy Spirit's forgiveness.

I read your book with the hope and idea that the universe would indeed disappear.
You are saying that the Universe does not even exist. From where I seem to be, when
I am suffering I still want the Universe to disappear. Have I missed the point?

The disappearance of the Universe will only happen on a permanent basis when everyone
has achieved enlightenment and awakened from the dream. And where is a dream when
you wake up from it? Nowhere, because it' s not real and it never really existed. Still,
when you are suffering, it'
s possible for your suffering to be ended NOW through the
dynamic of advanced forgiveness. Indeed, that' s a major goal of the Course and my
teachers.

Every seemingly separated mind will awaken from the dream and return to Heaven
eventually. It'
s a done deal. As my teachers said, the real question is how long do you
want to prolong your suffering? ACIM teaches that "The guiltless mind cannot suffer."

Jesus, because his mind had been completely healed by the Holy Spirit and he was
guiltless, could not feel pain. As my teachers said, pain is not a physical process, it is a
mental process. One of the true joys of enlightenment is that the body cannot feel pain.
My teachers said Jesus really SHOULD be called a master. Many call themselves that,
but you don' t see them going around healing the sick and raising the dead. I also doubt
that they could have nails driven through their wrists without feeling any pain. Of course
I'
ll apologize if I'm wrong.

The true message of Jesus lies not in the crucifixion but the Resurrection, which is our re-
awakening. There is no death; the Son of God is free!

Are you enjoying people’s interest in your book?

So far, yes. Most of the people I meet are genuinely interested in the teachings and have a
very open minded approach to spirituality.

How can people learn more about you and your travel schedule?

My publisher' s website has plenty of information about me. The address is

www.fearlessbooks.com Click on The Disappearance of the Universe, then scroll down
and you' ll find several links about the book, including reviews, excerpts, a listing of my
scheduled appearances, which are periodically updated, and an interview with me. I also
participate in a discussion group about the book at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disappearance_of_the_Universe

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After appearing at the Christ Mind Awareness Conference in Cairns from Nov. 5-17
Gary R. Renard plans on touring the southern part of Australia for 2 weeks, from
Nov. 18 - Dec. 1.

Paul Morris Segal is the co-creator of Inner Power Training, a photojournalist, actor
and stand-up comedian. He is the host of Write Now radio and Amazing TV.
Information on Paul’s work, further articles, celebrity photographs and a free e-
zine are available at www.innerkiss.com

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I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO
By Gary Renard ( www.GaryRenard.com )

On April 16-18 I was honored to be the guest teacher at Miracles Experience # 22 in

the Redwood Forest. Throughout the weekend the 70 participants and I shared a
wonderful combination of profound teachings, laughter and experiential exercises. As I
led the morning workbook lessons, gave my personal presentation, answered questions
during a panel discussion with Rev. Tony, and participated in the church service I was
struck by the high level of commitment on the part of everyone involved to achieve the
goal I had stated at the beginning of the weekend: That by fine-tuning our ability to
practice the Course’s style of advanced forgiveness we would save thousands of years in
the process of our spiritual development. I sincerely believe that we achieved our goal.
One of my favorite parts of the whole experience was the time I spent joining with
people on a personal level. When I’m not busy presenting I like to take the time to meet
people, answer their particular questions, take pictures with them, sign books and share
experiences. I spent the whole three days communicating with people. Because minds are
joined, the energy was contagious, and I think we all felt it.
This was only my second visit to California and I was struck by the beauty of San
Francisco and Marin County, the warmth of Revs Tony and Larry, and the sophisticated
yet humorous spiritual atmosphere that filled the air at St. Dorothy’s Rest.
A part of what I shared with the participants during my “formal” presentation was the
distinction between true spirituality and what is being taught as spirituality by most
teachers today, including teachers of the Course. If true spirituality is about using the
mind to manifest what we desire on the level of the world then we should have as our
spiritual leaders the people who are the best at manifesting abundance. So perhaps Bill
Gates should be the Pope and Donald Trump should be the Dalai Lama. But that is not
what true spirituality is about. Notice I didn’t say there was anything wrong with
manifesting what you desire, but it shouldn’t be confused with the real purpose of
spirituality. I like money, sex and cool stuff just as much as the next guy, but I’ve been
around long enough to notice that there’s something a lot more important. When people
ask me how old I am, I tell them I’m old enough to know better.
Hey! You might say. You came off looking a little immature in that book of yours!
That may be true, but I didn’t say I was mature. I just said I was old enough to know
better. Which brings up what true spirituality is really about.
First, while true spirituality isn’t about the successful attainment of false idols, it
doesn’t leave us out in the cold either. Indeed, there are ways, both through true prayer
and advanced forgiveness, for us to receive the fringe benefit of being guided as to what
we should do while we appear to be here. The difference is that we resign from the job of
being our own boss. We did not create ourselves. Rather, we have made ourselves into
something we are not: individuals. Individuality is merely a symptom of duality or
separation, but separation is not of God. Thus the only way to be guided in the world and
return to God at the same time is by joining with Him and living in a resulting state of
inspiration, or “in spirit”.

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 The teachers in my book, The Disappearance of the Universe, told me that in the end,
everything except for God is metaphor. So you have reality, which is God, and then you
have everything else, which is a dream state of illusion. That idea is at least as old as
Hinduism, but no matter how old the discipline is, practitioners will still get hung up on
moving things around in the illusion in order to try to make their dream a better one. Yet
true spirituality is NOT about improving the dream; it’s about waking up from the dream.
That’s not just a minor distinction; indeed, it is everything. When Buddha said I am
awake he didn’t mean he felt amazingly alert and ready to manifest like hell. He meant,
as A Course in Miracles would put it, that he recognized he was the dreamer of the dream
and not a figure in it. (T588) That experience is one of the purposes of the mind training
of Buddhism as well as the mind training of A Course in Miracles, which is the basis of
most of the teachings that were given to me in the book. As the Course says, “An
untrained mind can accomplish nothing.” (W1) And indeed there are times when the
Course reads almost like Buddhism plus God, handling the issues of God and Heaven in
the most lofty way ever presented. At the Miracles Experience we talked a great deal
about the Course and did an exercise that enabled us to practice forgiveness more
effectively in our everyday lives. This will permit us to be inspired and to hasten our
return to God at the same time. Both the short and long term benefits from this are
beyond measure.
At the church service near the end of the event, Tony asked us all to sing, “I left my
heart in San Francisco.” I didn’t even have to look at the words on the sheet. As the son
of professional musicians and a musician myself, I knew the words by heart. Except this
time I could feel them in a way I never could before. I’ll always remember the beauty of
Northern California and the joy of joining with the people of the Community Miracles
Center. Thanks everyone. I really love you guys.

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Discussion Group Sessions
Date: Mon Jul 14, 2003 4:08 pm
Subject: Re: Simon: friends reaction etc.

From the on-line discussion group about the book at Yahoo called “The Disappearance of
the Universe” (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disappearance_of_the_Universe )

ADVERTISEMENT
Simon wrote:

>Hi Gary,
Today as i was mowing the lawn and
thinking about your book,it came
to mind how utterly astonishing it must
have been to your
friends,family and especially Karen when
you finally got around to
explaining the appearence of Arten and
Pursah in your life.I wondered
how one could approach such a subject
and the reactions you got....
(clipped to save space)
At the start of this year as I was making
my list of "to do's" the
course was not even a distant thought on
my mind,now having been
thrown for a loop since reading Disappearance I'm still feeling
bemused about how quickly i've crossed a threshold of sorts and how
it has all become very important to me.
thanks,
Simon

Hey Simon. First, the second part of what you said. One of the
happiest things for me (and D. Patrick Miller of Fearless Books, the
publisher) about "Disappearance" has been hearing from people whose
Course books were gathering dust and who are returning to a study of
it as a result of reading the book. That's really exciting. Thanks.
As far as telling people I know about it, it's been a gradual
process. Arten and Pursah told me not to tell anyone about it until
after the visits were over, which I stuck to. I think the reason for
that was so I wouldn't be distracted, could pay attention to what
they were teaching and concentrate on my forgiveness lessons and
perhaps gradually get into a pattern of true forgiveness rather than
judgment. I've never pretended that I've been perfect in that regard,
but I do think the process is proceeding very well. I think I may
have let it slip at one of my Course study group meetings (I've been
going to the same study group in Leeds, Maine for the last ten years)
that I was being visited in person by two ascended masters and a
couple of people looked at me like I must be joking. Karen never read
my manuscript until it was published by Fearless Books, even though
the typed written pages were available to her. So there was over a
year before the appearances stopped and Karen saw the book. She liked
it, although she wasn't always happy about the way she was portrayed

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(I pointed out to her that the book wasn't always flattering to me
either) and she had no problem with my story of what happened. We
were talking with Vicki Poppe last month when we all went out to
Peak's Island here in Maine. Vicki asked Karen about this and Karen
said, "I'd trust Gary with my life." I think that pretty much sums up
her attitude towards me and the whole thing.
Most of my relatives are in Massachusetts. My parents are no
longer in this incarnation, but they were cool musicians and I know
they'd be right behind me. I think artists have the easiest time with
spiritual themes, because such ideas appeal more to the artistic mind
rather than the scientific one. My communication with relatives has
been mostly by e-mail. Some of it has been positive, but there are a
couple of cousins who won't speak to me anymore. I'm not sure of the
exact reason, but I'm sure it isn't pretty. (LOL) I'm going to be
going to a big family reunion in Salem, Massachusetts on August 16
and I'll get to see all my relatives for the first time in years. It
should be interesting!
My family of in-laws in Maine think it's cool that I wrote a
book and got it published. No one on either side of my family has
done that before, so it makes me unique in that respect. Most of them
don't care what it's about. They're just happy I'm doing something
successful. They're down to earth, hard working people and to put it
kindly, they've always seen me as being more, shall we say, abstract?
(LOL)
My close friends have been completely supportive, as has my
brother in Florida. They're all reading or have read the book and are
having a good time with it. So far, most of my lessons have been
gentle. Thank the Holy Spirit for small favors. I'll keep you posted.
Love and peace, Gary ( www.GaryRenard.com )

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