It’s sometimes difficult to appreciate how very different Access Founder Gary Douglas really is.

Sometimes it’s difficult for Gary himself to perceive it. Such was the case during the recent 7-day advanced seminar in Costa Rica, when someone asked Gary the difference between change and difference. He had no idea that most people do not know the difference between the words “change” and “difference.” Gary was speechless.

So do YOU know the difference? Change would be a mere rearrangement of what is, like changing the color of your house. It is changing the superficial appearance of something without changing its essential nature or how you approach it.

Difference, according to the dictionary, means unlike anything else in nature, form, or quality. Difference is not an alteration of anything already existing – it is a choice to be something totally other or, well, different – not like anything else that already exists.

Why should we care? As Access classes starting with Foundation remind us, we create our reality with the words we think and speak. If we’re interested in being aware, or interested in having a different result in our life, then it behooves us to know what those words mean. In speaking and thinking about our lives, the difference between what change and difference are, is huge.

Access invites everyone to step out of all limitations of this reality where we are expected to look for how we fit or benefit and win or lose in every situation and interaction in our life. Gary refers to this as “contextual reality.” To go beyond that would be to choose “non-contextual reality” where everyone has the choice to function from question, infinite choice, infinite possibility and contribution. This is a necessity for us if we wish to go beyond our current limitations and start to function as the infinite beings we truly are.

In order to step out of this contextual reality, no amount of change or rearranging is enough. It cannot be fixed. As Gary asks rhetorically many times in class; “what part of this reality is working?” Is your life truly working as you would like? Is the life of those you know as great as they truly could be? Is any part of the world working well? Most people approach change as that which will “fix” a problem. Has it yet? What if it is not change that will fix anything, but doing and being different that is what we are actually looking for?

Change would be re-painting the house; different would be leveling the house to the ground and starting over. Different would be no house. Different would be building out of materials that have never been used before.

It’s possible to change things in your life while still functioning from other peoples’ points of view of what you can, should, and must do. To be really different requires functioning only from your own point of view; it’s not possible to be truly different if you continue to take on others’ points of view, or regard them as anything other than merely interesting points of view.

It takes courage to be different. Courage is much more than merely having no fear. Courage is the willingness to be entirely unlike anyone else on the planet, without having to change any part of you to conform to the expectation of anyone else.

Living the courage it takes to be that different can change the world. Do you dare?

Gary Douglas and Dain Heer teach seminars internationally on the tools and practical life philosophy of Access Consciousness. More information about the methods included here and their books, audio recordings, teleseminars, and live classes can be found at www.accessconsciousness.com.