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

This is the first Section I in the Chapter 28 on UNDOING OF FEAR. It discuses the restoration of the present memory. We think of memory of past situations and events, but seldom do we think of it as a recollection of this present moment. This Section discusses the undoing of the debilitating memory of fear, guilt or anger based on error experienced in our past, brought to the present through a false projection we make up.

All guilt is based on past memories of illusions. But we think these illusions are "real." What is an illusion but a mirage of something that is not really there, but that we have given some form we "think we see?" Can we question these images we bring forward from the past?

Misperceptions are not true. The miracles remove our beliefs that the false is "true." Undoing is their function. The real memory is one of the NOW. This holds our real Cause of Peace and Joy. Negative thoughts have no real effects in this present state of being. All guilt is born in the past. When we enter truly in our awareness of this Presence, illusions are finished, and we can remember the sacred joys of the present.

The Speaker talk about The "Hero" of the Dream," Section VIII in Chapter 27. The main problem we have is the belief that we are "bodies." The body is the central figure in the "dreaming" of the world.

The external world of the senses is our confirmation that we are a body, and our Identity is inextricably bound to the body. In many ways do we assign "cause" to the body. The effects become the cause in our mind, which is an illusion.

Our Self is not our body. It is not a "dream" for which we use the body as the "hero" of our dream. Time cannot turn upon eternity. There is no "guilt" within our Self. We can rise above the body level and live in the awareness of this Holy Self. Guilt is gone when we properly perceive this world as neutral, and merely a "print out" of the thoughts we are thinking. Therefore we can uplift our mind with thoughts of Peace and Joy instead of Pain and Suffering. The lesson of Deliverance is that we are a Thought of Innocence in the Mind of God. We are saved and we are free.

The speaker discusses Section VII in Chapter 27—THE DREAMER OF THE DREAM. We are responsible for all the pain and suffering we have attracted to ourselves. We are the "dreamer" of our own dream. 

We separated from our Source, then we felt "guilty" about it; we projected the "guilt" onto others by blaming them for our troubles, thus ignoring that we are only attacking ourselves. We are the maker of pain and suffering in our life. 

We have to first see that we made the bad dream ourselves so we can step out of it. The Holy Spirit offers us a "different dream" of the "forgiven world." With this happy dream we can be healed of the pain and suffering we have inflicted upon ourselves. The choice is ours: peace or war; life or death; health or suffering. LIFE IS PEACE. The Peace of God is ours to heal us of any pain or suffering. 

In this podcast the Speaker discusses the dichotomy that the ego insists is its main focus—the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure, all to divert our attention away from our belief in eventual death. The real purpose to see our Immortality and extension of Love seems to be diverted by these "witnesses" of our inner conflict. 

This Section points out these two, "pain or pleasure," are distractions that call for "death." They focus on the "sins" of the body, and cannot go beyond the physical limitations we have imposed upon our self. 

The Holy Spirit has an Answer that transcends the "body" we have assigned to our Identity. The body is simply a means of communication, and what is to be communicated is Immortality and absolute freedom. This is our Spiritual Paradigm that we simply use the body to make more clear. 

The Holy Spirit sees our reality is only Spirit, in the Immortal Essence that connects us with our Source. Pleasure and pain are directed to a mistaken focus, one diverted away from our Source Energy. We have misplaced this focus on the impermanent and therefore the "unreal." The witnesses of "sin" are replaced with miracles, the Witnesses of Truth, of our Immortal Life, the Unconditional Love that we are—beyond all pain or pleasure or even death. Then PERFECT HAPPINESS is the purpose to which all of our feelings are dedicated. 

We can only heal ourselves. As we accept the Atonement for ourselves, and the Holy Instant of total suspension of our "attack thoughts," we can accept the healing that the Christ offers us. If we wish only to be healed, we heal. But if we are afraid of healing, we will not have it. We have to "love without attack" if only for an instant. 

Fear and attack go together. Conflict is their nature. We do not need to be totally free of all conflict to be healed. If we had no conflict we would not need healing. Yet, for a Holy Instant we must suspend conflict and attack in order to receive Christ's vision and gift of healing. A Holy Instant is sufficient. It is necessary for our healing. 

Having accepted healing for ourselves wholeheartedly, we have the potential to shine this healing light onto others. It can undo all the war and conflict the world is caught in, and offer healing to all the people in this world of strife. In the Holy Instant there is a blessing we receive and give. We bless the world because we bless ourselves first with the miracle of healing. We let in the part of our mind that is Christ's healing Force. It is already within us, and we have to call upon this Energy for our own healing. Then we become an "Example of Healing" that this Section V talks about. 

The QUIET ANSWER comes from our Divine Connection. In the Will of God, there are no problems that cannot be solved, and solved immediately, once and for all. The "one problem," an imagined "separation" from our Source, has not really occurred, therefore it has already been "solved."

But we have to use a different thought system to accept this Answer. The Holy Instant is invoked to give us this Answer, and we must be willing to receive it, otherwise we reject the real Answer and ask questions that do not want the Answer.

Let us recognize our problems have one Answer, and in this Peace and Quiet we can receive the solution that resolves all of our problems at once. The end of Separation simply means we accept our Divine Connection as our only reality, we recognize that Peace is the Answer, and God bestows that Answer on us when we are ready to receive it.

What are symbols but something that "stand for" something else. They indicate but do not reveal the actual. And if these symbols are contradictory by nature, then they are further removed from reality.

This Section asks us to put aside the "symbols" and "pictures" we have of our brother. None of them are true, therefore, none of them represent reality. None of them connect us with the truth of our brother.

Forgiveness puts us in right relationship with what we see in the world, our brothers included, in the picture free of our projections and mistakes. Can we move beyond the symbols we made up? They are at best partial, and at worst false projections of what we want to see, but is not there. True vision moves beyond symbols and their implied meanings.

What is the fear of Healing? Do we accuse our brother for our ailments and hurts? In this case, not wanting to give up our projections of "guilt" onto others would make us resistant, even fearful of healing. 

We do not want to give up the accusations that resulted in our bodily damage. The unhealed cannot pardon. It is not forgiveness to make the error "real" and then to "pardon" it. True forgiveness sees there is no "cause" for "hurt," and we maintain our health and well-being. We cannot suffer when we have truly forgiven. 

Who forgives is healed. His healing in the witness of true and total pardon. It is free of all "sickness." A healed mind and healed body would not  try to demonstrate "proof of error” by maintaining sickness.  We attest "sin" has no real effects on us, including sickness. There is no "guilt" that "sickness" would offer witness. The body never suffered pain because of our brother's "guilt." Innocence is our only realty, and this exhibits Oneness, not separation acted out in “sickness,” as a form of proving our brothers’ guilt. 

This is one of the deepest, and most difficult facts to see in the whole Course in Miracles —of how the ego projects guilt onto others to avoid seeing its own “guilt,” which it is trying to maintain through blaming others. 

Sickness is a defense against the truth of our Innocence. It testifies that "someone else is guilty," and my sickness is my righteous "sacrifice" of myself to field the "guilt" that belongs to someone else, but not to me. I will suffer the pain of someone else's guilt. This is the conventional notion of the Crucifixion: Christ had to suffer and die because of our "guilt." God had to "sacrifice" His "only Son" to "save us." 

This is a screwed up view indeed. The "sickness" we have taken on is ALL about the illusion of guilt—either we have taken guilt upon ourselves, and therefore need to "punish ourselves" with sickness, or we have projected guilt onto others, and therefore we need to "sacrifice" ourselves (with sickness) to balance the scale and "prove" our innocence through their "guilt." This Section I, The Picture of Crucifixion, makes all of this crystal clear and gives us a way out of it. 

What is the end of injustice? Do we still see some anger and attack as justified? This would block the Justice of God, Who Created all in their original innocence. The "mistakes" we have made, or any one else has made, have not altered this fact of total innocence. Therefore, attack is never justified. 

The world's view is different. In order for some to be innocent, others must be "guilty." The "Son of God" may be innocent, but everyone else is a "sinner" deserving of some form of payment or retribution. This is deeply engrained as a belief the ego upholds. 

Shall we let go of this insanity today? "Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated." If we can let go of the notion we have been teated by another "unfairly," then we could be in the Blessing of our connection with our brothers, and undo all notions of attack and guilt. This is the only purpose for us being here in this dimension. To let go of all forms of guilt, either in ourselves or projected onto others, would eliminate the notion of ever being “unfairly treated.”