THE GIFTS OF GOD —Sondra Ray and Markus Ray on A Course in Miracles

We can see our brother's "sinlessness" or his guilt that we project onto him, most likely the "guilt" we have unresolved or unforgiven in ourselves. Forgiveness is the key to happiness, says Lesson #121. But are we trusting that forgiveness has this much power? Many think it "weakness" to forgive, to let someone "off the hook" for mistakes that call out...

What is this LIGHT YOU BRING? Self Identity is the only thing we need to "know." There is a TRUTH that we need to make contact with in order to be awakened. My "Self" is the "ruler of the universe." This would be the Son of God. The Son has only the Thoughts of God in his/her mind. A Voice that emanate the Thoughts of God, would be one that is free of all falseness. L...

We have a choice in what we perceive. What we want to perceive precedes what we perceive. Therefore, we decide the world we want. If we value "guilt," we would justify a world of attack and punishment. We are in the "driver's seat" here. The other option is a "Forgiven World" of Christ's Vision. The separated world or the Unified World of Oneness are the two w...

This is a beautiful section that uses the metaphor of a frame and a picture within the frame that we look upon of our brother's ego, past mistakes, failures, and dissatisfactions. We see ourselves in this darkened picture as well. We are asked to see a different frame and a different picture—one our own sinlessness—one of our holiness. The masterpiece that God created is our True Self, one of...

We start a new CHAPTER #25 today—THE JUSTICE OF GOD. The justice of God is for us to have certainty of our Identity in God. And to do this we must transcend our "identification" with the body, and the body's mode of perception. The Son of God is risen into a dimension "beyond the body." The Holiness is of Spirit and the Oneness of Spirit. Body "identification" is...

Where do we meet our true Self? We can try to join in the realm of our specialness of bodies, and make a false self of our egos, bound to the physical limitations of our perceptions; or, we can join with the Mind of God, in which all decisions are already made in the Oneness of all Creation. These are the two places of "Meeting" available to us. In the first is there limitation, conditio...

What would it take for us to be liberated ("saved") from fear? This Section VI in Chapter 24 deals with this question. It may be telling us something we are unwilling to do, but nevertheless is the only real answer to this query. Our "brother" is our "savior" from fear when we are willing to see his "holiness" instead of his "ego personality." But...

"The Christ in You is very still." This is a fact we all must get as students of ACIM. There is a Self God created, call it the Christ, Who is our true Identity. And this awareness of our Source, of our Real Self, is the whole purpose of the miracles we invoke, as devoted students of this Course. Are we allowing the miracles to take shape in our life? Are we making contact with this &quo...

The Specialness that we have built up around ourselves keeps us isolated. We think it is a "protection," but it really pinches us off from the Life Force that we could call our Source. In this Source are all of us merged as One. We can use the body for the purpose of attack and hurt, or for healing and forgiveness. The decision to "hurt" or to "heal" is our only decis...

Specialness is the theme of this chapter—and how to end it. The goal of specialness is to keep us separated without a notion that we are "harming ourselves." We can even make ourselves "die" and God cannot intervene, because of our Free Will. Yet the goal of death and dissolution is not our True Will that we share with God's Will. This Will is our only reality. The ego make...

We are by now not fooled so much by the deceptions of "specialness." Specialness says, "I have a deficiency, and you must fill it." Or, "I see what you lack, and I am here to save you from that." Both approaches focus on the ego's "made up self" that is not whole and complete. Everyone falls into this self-deception at some time in their life. Educationa...

The Special Relationship is based on lack. It's premise is something like this: "I do not have everything I need to be a whole person; I need you to fill my lack, and if you do that I will "love" you, but if you don't I will "hate" you." It is very "treacherous" as this Section II of Chapter 24 points out. We compare and assess with judgments that co...

Specialness is a goal we have to make our ego predominant in our relationships, which keep our unfulfilled needs at the forefront of our demands upon others to meet them. This does not give us peace. Specialness is rooted in problems, anxiety, conflict, and uncertainty. Why would we choose specialness over our Holiness in which all of our needs are met already, and the Joy that is the nature of th...

There is no "war" without "attack." Conflict of any kind involves attack thoughts. And ultimately this "intent" is murder. What is not loving must be attack. What is not Love is "murder." Conflict must have attack in it. It is all part of our unconscious "death urge." We do not overcome any tendency by "fighting against it." The Action to...

Salvation does not compromise. Its total, whole, and uncompromising nature is indeed what makes it "salvation." One cannot be "partially saved" from war. One cannot be "partially free" from death. Anger is attack, and attack is murder; therefore, all anger is a wish for death. Anger projected from others onto us, and our anger projected onto others, is never justified...

The "Laws of Chaos" lead us to confusion and death. But they appear just the opposite. The first one is that "truth" is different for everyone. The second is that "everyone is a sinner." The third is that God created us a "sinner" and we are condemned to death, not seeing that we made up the concept of "sin" separate from God's Will. We blame G...

The Laws of Chaos are not understandable. But that is their purpose—to render reason into the unreasonable. We can look upon them and overcome them. Chaos is the absence of order; understanding requires order. The first "law" of chaos is that "truth" can be different for everyone. Truth is only "relative," and not absolute. We are unwilling to accept Absolute Truth. W...

We could believe that War is justified. Control, domination, achieving a victory, an ultimate success over someone or something are just some of the motives of this behavior that is so common to the human race. The humans that reign at the top of the society are often making decisions based on their own interests, without regard to the Whole. Perhaps they consider their "countrymen," but...

In this Chapter 23, The War Against Yourself, we come to recognize that innocence and "sinlessness" are our Strength. The ego is in some constant battle with something, and all of it amounts to self attack. Even when we think we are attacking "another," the "other" is our self. No attack can not harm us. All anger, conflict, and attack goes against the Will of our Sou...

There is a light in everyone. Will we look for this in our brother? It is in our Mind. We give attention to this light. Our immortal Self is this Light. It is intertwined with our true identity, and we extend this to our brothers. There is no limitation. We need not concern ourselves so much with the body when we make the Mind our priority, and we see our Mind is automatically joined with God and...

Fear, weakness, and defensiveness manifesting as anger maintain our illusions. They do not dissolve them, but rather "strengthen" them in our mind. We often think that defenses like anger make us "strong," but they make us "weak in every cell of our body" according to AMMA. The Course would agree. Love joins us with our brothers. Everything in Creation is joined in a...

As students of A Course in Miracles we are all brought to this juncture—the "branching in the road." One branch leads you along in he same old lost and futile journey. The other branch leads you to a new reality in which fear, guilt, and anger do not exist in your world. Will you take the branch that maintains your ego, your limited, separated self, or will you take the other branch in w...

Reason is not fooled by the external forms of things that would heap upon our mistakes the heavy burden of "sin." Reason would merely correct the error, and remove all tinges of guilt from the mind of the one in error. A love of correction is reason's premise, not a dread. We have been conditioned to regret our mistakes, rather than see them as teaching tools. Reason would simplify o...

This is a key section. The decision for the Heaven of our Real Self or the hell of our ego. If we are not in Heaven now, we are in hell.

This Podcast completes Section I in Chapter 22, The message of the Holy Relationship. Our communication in this newly realized Holy Relationship, transformed from the unholy one, is like a baby's. But we are enveloped in this Holiness even though we have not mastered the language. That comes in time, and we are learning our native tongue in miracles. The rebirth of this new Holy Relationship h...