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

HEAVEN is real. It is free of all guilt and conflict. War is unreal. Guilt is unreal. There is no conflict in the Will of God. When we use the Holy Spirit's corrective energy on our behalf, we restore our will with God's Will, and therefore dissolve all forms of conflict. PEACE is WHOLE and unambiguous, or not at all. There is no variation or contrast in PEACE. This we would call HEAVEN. We are ready to leave behind our former "guidance system" of the ego, that kept us embroiled in the contrasts of opposites, and surrender to the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit Who is in complete touch with our Reality. He judges the TRUTH from the FALSE, and lets the FALSE go. God would WILL us into HEVEN, and the Holy Spirit can lead us there when we are willing to be led and make no decisions by ourselves.

RELEASE FROM guilt is seeing your true SELF is only pure innocence. Mistakes are inconsequential to this true SELF.

Why do we hang onto the "guilt" we maintain from past mistakes. We have a saying--"Keep no records of wrongdoing." The Atonement stands brightly and clearly in this Holy Instant in the present. God created us Innocent, regardless of our past mistakes. We need not hang onto the "guilt" of wrongdoing from the past. The past is over. And the Self God created did not make the errors in the first place. Can we Identify with our True Self? In this acceptance we are absolved of all past "guilt" we thought we deserved. The Holy Instant is NOW. We do not keep records of wrongdoing. The guilt is "false," therefore guilt does not really exist. AMEN.

VIII. From Perception to Knowledge

1 All healing is release from the past. That is why the Holy Spirit is the only Healer. He teaches that the past does not exist, a fact which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore no one in the world can know. It would indeed be impossible to be in the world with this knowledge. For the mind that knows this unequivocally knows also it dwells in eternity, and utilizes no perception at all. It therefore does not consider where it is, because the concept "where" does not mean anything to it. It knows that it is everywhere, just as it has everything, and forever.

2 The very real difference between perception and knowledge becomes quite apparent if you consider this: There is nothing partial about knowledge. Every aspect is whole, and therefore no aspect is separate. You are an aspect of knowledge, being in the Mind of God, Who knows you. All knowledge must be yours, for in you is all knowledge. Perception, at its loftiest, is never complete. Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception can be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach everywhere under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds everything in light. Yet no perception, however holy, will last forever.

THE REAL WORLD IS OURS. But we have to want it above all else, and be willing to let go of the world we "made up." Would we commit ourselves to see through Christ's Vision? This is given to us when we want it, but we have to welcome it in. Love does not wait on time, but on our welcome to enter into our world of reality. This world is given, not made. This is the world free of pain, strife, unfulfillment, suffering, fear, etc. We have the means within us to be totally immersed in our Divine Reality. The Christ awaits our welcome. Om Namah Shivay!

Can we totally bring our awareness into the Present? Can we let go of all the images we have held on to from our past? The only real time is the Present, and the Light of our true Self is here. "No cloud of guilt" is held onto in our clinging to the past. We let the past go. Christ's Vision is only in the Present. With no past and no future, we are aware of this Holy Instant now. We are only in the Present, and the continuity of God's Peace and Joy in only here. It does not have a "past” regret, image, or projection...and it does not have a "future" into which these negative ways of seeings are projected. To be "born again" is to simply be in the Present without all the images of our past. We are Present in our Divine Truth that we always had, but we have to want to let the past go, and be ready to experience this Heaven on Earth Now. These are Eternal, Timeless states of Being. The Holy Spirit holds this out for us to receive NOW.

LOVE or FEAR. One is of God and one is of the ego. Which will we choose? The ego's "version" of "love" is racked with fear. In fact, the ego is the fear that made it. It rejects the wholeness of real LOVE, and picks its allies carefully to maintain its specialness and separation. Christ's Vision is necessary to cast out the fear that has become so much a part of our modus operandi. LOVE joins us together, is extended, and increases as it is given. FEAR is insanity, which is unique to the "thinker," and divides and separates us into an isolated entity which is connected to nothing, a "meaningless shell" of who we really are. We make fear, or we Create in Love. One or the other is inevitably our choice.

This Section, The Function of Time, we see the two uses of time: The ego's version is to bring the past into the present, all it's regrets and mistakes and guilt, and project those into the future, which turns it into a "hell" of repetitive errors that makes it destroy itself eventually. The Holy Spirit sees only the present, and the past is over and forgiven; the future would be an extension of the Joy that is presently here and "NOW." God's will for us is perfect happiness, and the present is clear and free—totally forgiven—of the past errors we made. We need a new use of "time" in which only the Present is here, which is the truth about "time." In the Present there is not function of "time" as the ego perceives it. And if we are free of the ego's us of time, we are in the timeless present of perfect happiness.

It is not pain and suffering we are afraid of; it is the Love that would heal them that instills a deep fear in us. We have grown accustomed to problems. We have gotten used to attack and counter attack. What would allow us to accept our Love for God and God's Love for us? It is our deepest desire that we keep hidden under the ego's shroud of suffering and death. We include our brothers and sisters in this healing. The real grandeur of God's blessing with healing is what we really want. God placed the solution in us in the midst of our imagined "separation." Let us look upon the Love that would dispel our fear. Let us accept the resurrection instead of the crucifixion that does not really exist.

The Gift of Lillies on this Day of Easter is the recognition that there is no death, and our immortality is guaranteed. Those of us who leave our bodies behind are blessed today, and can enter into the Light of God, and of the Self, God's Son, to meet our true Identity. We give the body this blessing as well, that it served us well as a communication tool we used for awhile to join in Love with our Brothers and Sisters. Let us resurrect into the Spirit, and feel the Joy of Gain, not "loss," in our Vision of our Holiness. May all of those we know who have taken their transition out of the body be blessed in their True Self today, and be given the Lillies of Easter, this day of great Peace and Joy. We can see things differently and offer the Lillies of Easter instead of the "thorns" of "death." There is no death. The Son of God is free. AMEN.