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

Today's Podcast is on Lesson #227: THIS IS MY HOLY INSTANT OF RELEASE.What are we releasing? The Holy Instant releases us from the illusions of ourself. We have fear, guilt, and anger that taint our awareness of our True Self. The Holy Instant is a suspension of our misperceptions long enough to see our True Self.  Our real Self is invulnerable to attack. All attack in which we engaged in the past had no effects on our real Self or the real Self of others. Can we put all memories of feeling weak and attacked aside? Our true Mind is strong, because it relies on the Strength of God working through us to make us aware of our God Created Self. We are strong, not weak. We are undivided and whole, so we see any attack is not necessary and has no real effects. This is my Holy Instant of release. The self we thought we made up is released. And we are whole and complete in the safety of our True Being. Amen.

"My home awaits me. I will hasten there." This is today's Lesson #226, on this 226th day of this year. When we "look within," do we observe there is a Force that is benevolent to our needs, and that there is no situation to which Miracles do not apply. Therefore, our "results" are our teachers. The "learning" the Holy Spirit has for us is observable in the results we are getting in life. The Holy Spirit is invisible, but we can see the results of His/Her attention and influence. By their fruits are they known. We can observe the fruits that manifest in our life and give thanks for the help we received to manifest our good results. And we can forgive and let go of the results that do not bring us good health and pure joy. Our "Home of Heaven" is our inheritance. And...we can "hasten there" with the power of our own decision to not go anywhere else.

Love is shared. We love God through loving our Brothers and Sisters. In order to receive God's love requires we are willing to give love. Giving is the proof that we have it. I give to receive and to be aware I have received. We receive the love through giving it. We are not people who run off to the Himalayas and meditate in a cave, but we are very engaged with people. Our mission involves humanity. The rest of the world is not in a state of Peace and Joy. Our job, our mission in life is to uplift humanity to another dimension of Divine Reality, one soul at a time. There are people we are meant to reach. They are already in our lives, most likely, to whom we can give our care, our insight, our complete acceptance and forgiveness. We can be still and "quietly do nothing" but invite in the Holy Spirit to set all things right. The Holy Spirit is the Power that does all the work.

God is our Father, and He loves all of His children, His Creations, with an unending, steady and benevolent Love. We can look toward the gift of Heaven that God gives to us to be our only Reality. Today, on the day of a solar eclipse, we ask to experience our True Identity as Sons and Daughters of God, God the Father and God the Divine Mother. God is Love, and His/Her Will for us is perfect happiness. God, being Love, is also happiness. We are all Sons and Daughters of a Divine Creator. And that Will of our Creator is only Joy for us. And we have miracles of forgiveness to undo anything that is not our True Identity. Today let this be the day we STOP pretending to be our "false self" (the ego) and BE AWARE of our True Self (the Love of God) whom God created happy and whole. Love, M & S

We have no LIFE except the one God gave us. We think that we made up a life, but this spark of Creation that we ARE, did not originate from us. It originated from a Power that is in us, but not of us. We were Created in the LOVING SPIRIT of the Cosmos, and we never left this SOURCE of Creation. This Lesson, #223, acknowledges this SOURCE, and also gets us looking in the right direction toward a Life Free of all problems and mistakes. "Let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes, for we who are you Holy Son are sinless." What a most powerful line in ACIM. Can we bring this into application? It is given to us today to apply and even to realize. Blessings to you. MARKUS & SONDRA

We start PART II of the Workbook of A Course in Miracles today. It is an Auspicious day! It is the beginning of God's step toward us. PART I of the Workbook dealt with the undoing of the "ego's thought system" of fear, guilt, anger, judgments, attack thoughts, grievances, — basically all the thoughts we think in "separation" from our Source of Love. PART II begins the "revelations" that God wants to give to us. We begin with a deeper meaning of FORGIVENESS ➞ "What you thought your brother did to you never occurred." This is Forgiveness at a whole new level. No more "undoing" of what did not occur, but the Vision that it is non-existent. What is not there needs no more "undoing." It is simply not "seen" anymore. This is the beginning of a Mind that "thinks only the Thoughts of God." Peace is the first gift. PEACE TO MY MIND (let all my [ego] thoughts be still). Wouldn't that be nice. We can finally, actually, really, "Rest in God." (Lesson #109)

"There is no Peace except the Peace of God." This is the last Lesson in Part I of the Workbook of ACIM. Think of the phrase, "Looking for Love in all the wrong places.” This Lesson implies we have been seeking peace but pursuing war. We have been saying we want Love but feeding the fires of conflict. Thought itself is a conflict Manufacturer—albeit in the name of "peace." There is no surrender to the Peace of God in a mind that thinks it "knows" what it is. We do not know what only God can Know unless we stop pursuing our notions of "what we think it is." War will end when we forgive ourselves for perpetuating war, and drop it. This unequivocal Lesson says peace does not exist outside the Mind of God. So let us today, with deep humility and grace, ask that our "pursuits" and "attempts" to establish "peace" come to and end, and that we can receive even a glimpse of this Truth, the real Peace of God. 

Can we connect with our True Identity that is not limited by our body in this dimension of physicality, and in the "memory bank" of our dualistic mind of "this versus that?" We have no limitations and edges of the finite version of ourselves. We keep ourself bound and limited by our own volition, by decisions we have made to put ourselves in the jailhouse of the body. The body is not inherently "good" or "bad," according to opinions we form about it. It is a "neutral thing," a "communication tool or device" that we use to communicate Truth, Love, Peace and Joy to our brothers and sisters. What can we use our mind to extend in this world that has forgotten its basis is Love? Love created me like itself, and God, being Love is also Happiness. Can we be Happy beyond belief. This is a Divine function of Being Spirit.

What if all injury was unreal? What if it was impossible to attack and be attacked? What if the fears we have are based on nothing in truth? This lesson, #198, says all "condemnation" (or attack) on my part also injures me. By attacking another, one cannot avoid feeling attacked himself. This reinforces the principle that what I put out I will receive back. Can we shift this whole perspective. The purpose of anything in our world that feels uncomfortable, including "attacks" from external causes, is to lead us to the practice of forgiveness. "I will forgive and see this differently; I will forgive and this will disappear." These are the statements we endeavor to bring into application as students of A Course in Miracles. In our mastery of true forgiveness, there is no attack or condemnation—either given out by us, or received by us from forces "outside ourself."

Can we receive the gifts we give in the moment, as we receive them simultaneously in the giving? "All that I give is given to myself." This is Lesson #126. The review Lesson today is #197, "It can be but my gratitude I earn." It means that we receive the gratitude of the gift at the moment we give it—not to be "paid back" with some "return on our investment" in the future. Nothing is "owed." Gratitude is earned in the moment—not in the future. There is a correction we can make easily when we acknowledge ourselves as the recipient of all the gifts we give. I earn the gratitude in the moment by my own pure giving. I expect "nothing back later." The Joy of Service is giving to another in the moment, and in the "giving" is the "gratitude." Can we heal our expectations and discontent that we are not being adequately "rewarded" for our giving? We RECEIVE the GRATITUDE through the GIVING in the PRESENT, right now! There in no future action of acknowledgement needed when the giving is pure. In the giving is our gratitude received instantly. Bole Baba Ki Jai!