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

We already are HOLY. This is our Truth. Atonement is a "reparative process" that removes the illusions of our past "mistakes" that make us miserable. We keep a "record of wrongdoing" in ourselves and others that prevent us from seeing the reflection of our Holiness that is our only Reality. Healing is the only concern of the Holy Spirit, and healing is what we need in order to "erase" the opposites of our Holiness. Fear, guilt and anger have no reality in Truth, but we have to make contact with this Truth of Holiness to shine away these illusions in us. The reflection of our Holiness is seen in the Mirror of our true Self that shines its light of innocence upon us. This Holy Light of the Holy Spirit undoes our illusions. Everything that is not Pure Joy and Pure Life is dissolved. Death itself is undone in this Reflection of our Holiness. We are that—Pure Joy and Immortal Life.

We have a HOLY MEETING PLACE with the Holy Spirit at the Altar of the Father with His Son. The gifts on this "Holy Meeting Place" have the Innocence and Glory of the unseparated Father and the Son. Love flows constantly here. The Holy Altar to our true Relationship with God abides. Let us not put on our Altars what does not belong there. "Fear guilt or anger" are illusions that we have tried to replace that Love and Holiness that is only on our Altar with God. Grievances and Attack Thoughts have no place in this "Holy Meeting Place." Let our minds not wander into the shadows that are not really there. Let's open the doors of our Temple and see God's Glory with that He gives to His Son, Who is US!

TRUTH is UNION. In UNION opposites cannot coexist. War and Peace are but projections of the ego as opposites. When brought to the TRUTH, war has no justification, and only peace has a Divine Cause. Fear is the source of the ego that wants to keep "opposites" alive. The ego justifies fear, and conflict and war are then perpetuated. The opposites have not be "brought together." Only the Holy Spirit can dissolve the fear, and make clear that only LOVE and Peace emanate from the Truth. The false, in this case "fear," does not really exist. It is miraculous to see that fear is never justified, and truly "there is nothing to fear." The ego hides the truth and never looks at it. The justifications for defenses and war are built up in the ego's thought system. In the Divine Mind, war is never justified—killing is not Divine. At best it is a compensation for the ego's gross mistakes. When "opposites" are brought together, the untrue is shined away by the truth. LOVE prevails over "fear," and soon Love, Peace and Joy are seen as our rightful inheritance in TRUTH.

It is the LIGHT which shines away the darkness. What is held secret and obscure in our minds, based on shame and fear and guilt, can be shined away by the Light of True Forgiveness. The Light of Love is Forgiveness in this dimension. The sentinels of guilt keep our shame secret. We carry the past mistakes as "records of wrongdoing." But it is time for us to LET GO of these shadows that have no real substance other than that which we give to them. Bring the LIGHT of Guiltlessness to these shadows of "guilt." Keeping them hidden does not serve our Communication with God. For only the truly Innocent can be communicated. The Light of Love is the only thing worth communicating. All else is a “break down" of communication. Why keep these shadows alive in our MIND? Let them be dissolved by the Light of Holy Reason that shines away the darkness in our memories.

Can we enter into the Circle of Atonement in the quiet of God's eternal Love for us? The message is always the same: God's Son is only guiltless. There is no guilt in the true Mind of God that is ours to use. We were created in this Mind of God, and only Innocence and Joy abide in the holiness of this Mind, of which ours is a part. Who could condemn with guilt Whom God has blessed in His purity? We enter into the circle of the Atonement when we choose to see our brother's sinlessness, and our own. There is no "sin" that we were taught by "false religious theology." We can distinguish the pure message of the Christ to restore us to the awareness of our Innocence, which has always been within us to awaken. Escaping from all pain depends on us freeing ourselves through the Atonement from all forms of guilt we have thought was "real."

We are already absolved of any mistakes we made. But we do have to practice forgiving others, especially if we are prone to holding onto grievances. Love holds no grievances, and mistakes anyone made do not affect at all the Love God has for them. So who are we to withhold our Love to them, based on our grievances. Keeping "records of wrongdoing" puts us in a quagmire of the past, and prevents us from receiving the Atonement for ourselves. Atonement is for ALL for ALL situations, or not for anyone at all. We have to make the decision to forgive fully, and this is seeing that the "errors" had no "effects" on the Reality of Who we are, and What we are divinely doing here.

Only the Guiltless are Free. And only Guiltlessness is our reality. Guilt is an illusion. But this fact does not stop us from projecting guilt onto us and others. We believe the false is "true," and attack based on this "guilt" is justified. We decide each second between "guilt" or "guiltlessness." Our INNOCENCE is our REALITY. How would we step into this Awareness unequivocally? Our Innocence is guaranteed by our Creator. Our Atonement is the end of all guilt, but we have to make a decision with the Holy Spirit to accept it. God's Will for us is perfect happiness, and this would require the decision for "Guiltlessness" for us to align our will with God's Will.

There is a simplicity of Truth. What we pursue to bring us "happiness" too often brings us disappointment or even despair. "Pursuit of happiness" is our divine right, yet these pursuits can lead to "nothing." We make palaces, golden crowns, and royal robes out of nothing. We are fooled by appearances. These appearances too often disintegrate into dust, leaving us with the perishable. The simple beauty of Everything is the stillness of the Peace of God. There is something beyond materiality that is a Gift of God to us. Happiness is here now. Perfect happiness is God's Will for us. Can we receive it and claim the Truth as our own? The Holy Spirit helps us to make this one decision.

Can we really learn anything from the ego when the final result of the ego's thought system is conflict, sickness, and death? These results are "nothing" according to the Holy Spirit. Truth will correct all errors in our Minds when we ask Him to liberate us from our mistakes. We have one decision to make: to turn our minds over the the Holy Spirit for His directions. The logic of the ego's world leads to "nothing." We do not see this, therefore we need the Holy Spirit's correction which is a condition for learning. We first must learn the system we are using is in error, and be willing to give that up. Then we can be shown the Simplicity of Truth, which is the true Love of God that created us.

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.

Guilt is something we feel and then project onto others. The ego's thought system is based on guilt, and retaining guilt. Projection of guilt does not "get rid" of it. The ego believes if you dare to think you are "guiltless," then you are really "guilty." To declare our absolute innocence is "blasphemous to God," according to the ego. The guiltless induce "fear" in the ego. But when we have seen the Truth that God's Son is guiltless, full of joy, and whose will is perfect happiness, and we are God's Son, the ego just appears as ridiculous. The cornerstone of the ego has no real basis. The Truth redeems us along with the Christ, who is eternally Innocent.

This whole Chapter 13 is called "THE GUILTLESS WORLD." This Chapter is to help us to see things differently, and be freed from the delusion of "guilt." The guilt projected onto ourselves and others makes up "laws of suffering, separation and death." This is a loveless world of the ego. We cannot have a feeling of a Benevolent and Merciful GOD in this picture of the ego. "Love does not kill to save." Adam's "sin" was merely a mistake of feeling guilt. God did not condemn man by "throwing him out of paradise." We threw ourselves out through the delusion of guilt. It was the belief in "guilt," not our Creator, that put us in hell. God created us "originally innocent" and established Heaven as our eternal State of Being, in the frequency of our "guiltlessness."

Can we remember the Love that created us? It is our Divine Connection. This is the precedent in our life. Our Divine Connection is our attraction to Absolute Love. Love created us like Itself, and this Energy that created the Universe is at our disposal. But if we would rather listen to the ego's voice, the Love that would solve our problem has become "invisible." What is "visible" is our despair that resulted from our separation. Will we continue to relinquish that Power that Created Reality for some version of a "reality" that is embroiled in massive problems that we first projected? We are ATTRACTED to Love and Love only. In Love there is no conflict. There is no "crusade" to protect ourselves from the very Evil that we made up in our world.

"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible and what has been learned can be recognized only by its results. Its generalization is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles when you apply them to all situations." This is the beginning of asking for Help in the Mind. You start within. The Holy Spirit is there to Help us with our Healing, but we have to ask for it. This is the Action of "Looking Within." The Miracles is trading our expectations from the ego to the Holy Spirit. We have to expect the Miracles before we can have them. Whose manifestations will we invoke? The Holy Spirit manifests the Christ. Are we willing to have only this?

The Vision of Christ is the help we need to make contact with our Higher Self. The value of our Self is realized by the extension of loving thoughts outward. We have something to give, and this is our own remembrance of God. The Holy Spirit reminds of this Divine Connection. The Real World is composed of only loving thoughts; everything else is a "call for help." Our job is to meet the unloving with the loving. The real world springs to our sight because the Christ has never left us. In perfect peace He waits for us at our Father's Altar, where we waits for our awakening. Christ is the Identity we share, and the way we express love in this world.

This is the beginning of sanity, in which we listen to the Teacher that can give us the SANE CURRICULUM. The ego's rule is to "seek and make sure it does not find what it seeks." In terms of a curriculum, the ego tries to "learn but make sure it does not learn what it studies." Attack makes us weak, but the attacks we do on ourselves and others really have no effects. When we see our invulnerability to attack is true, all the attacks we have done on ourselves and others have not really weakened us. Attack has no effects on our Real Self. The Holy Spirit is our only Real Teacher. His Love is our strength. And this is the Sane Curriculum. No attacks have had any real effects.

The rule of the ego is "seek but make sure it does not find what it seeks." The futile search for "love" fails to acknowledge that Love is already our true nature—there is nothing we need to seek. We already "have" what the ego "seeks." What we "seek" is already ours. Seeking and finding go together. Lesson #230 says, "Today I seek and find the Peace of God." This Peace is inside of us. No external conditions need to be a certain way for us to stand in this Peace. It is always here, and requires we simply accept it in the present. And then it is here in our Mind, in our Awareness. It is always here now.

What is the reality we invest in? Are we investing in conflict, anger, problems, and trouble? Our Investment in Reality would be totally free of inner conflict and anger. The Text later states, "Anger is never justified." JOY is always justified, and we owe our brother the Reality of Peace and Joy. If he asks something of us that "does not really matter," rather than go into "opposition," respond with faith and acceptance. We can give to our brother the harmony and the abundance of the Holy Spirit's spiritual wisdom. To remain in peace is the key. Any response other than Love deviates from the Answer from God which is absolute abundance. We are supplied by the Love that is ours to give.

We remember God by remembering our brothers and sisters. To heal ourselves we translate denial into truth. All sickness is a "lack of love" from our denial. The sick must heal themselves, but it may be us who give this healing to others. We can deny the "denial of love." Only Love exists, and our remembrance to Love everyone and everything including ourselves is the way to remember God. We give the brother Love even in the midst of his problems and calls for help. Our response is the way of remembrance. Sickness is another "call for Love." It is our job to respond to any sickness with more Love. Give Love and we will know we have it. AMEN.

There are either Loving thoughts or a "call for help." How we respond to any situation, incident, or interaction accordingly would involve these. All other reactions would be giving the "unreal" a "reality" that is not there. We can remain neutral with either our response with Loving thoughts or with our response to a "call for help." How do we respond? Appreciation is the only response to our brother. There is one teacher of Reality, and this is the Holy Spirit. Hear This and receive all we need to answer any call for Help. We need the Holy Spirit's guidance in all responses. We do not know what the full situation is asking of us. We keep asking for guidance. And ask for and listen for the Judgment of the Holy Spirit, not our own.

We are in the critical juncture of A Course in Miracles with this Section VIII of Chapter 11. "The end of the world is not its destruction, but it's translation into heaven." Our healing powers require that we see with Christ's vision. We have a challenge to see that "only loving thoughts are true." Everything else is a cry for help. We can heal in the Christ Energy. He encompasses everyone in God's Love. "God had condemned me not. No more do I." This is Lesson #228. It is in keeping with this lesson of invoking only loving thoughts to be in the Reality of God's Answer. God's Answer is some form of Peace. All problems are solved in it. We need but call and God will answer us.

We have a responsibility to see that we do not know much (in the absolute state). We have to see that what we have learned amiss is our "problem." But what we "think we know" is erroneous. Can we drop the false world of ideas that do not require us to make contact with the "Actual?" Our one "problem" is separation from the Truth, which we maintain with the thoughts of the ego. We have one problem which is an "imagined separation" from our Source Energy, and we have specific problems that spring forth from this separation. We have to "undo" the known errors that we maintain. We ask the Holy Spirit to guide us and help us to erase our illusions; to help us solve our "problem of separation."

The main condition of reality is that it is unequivocal. It has no "opposite" in other words. And our attention is given to the Holy Spirit's thought system. The ego may see "the good," but it will always establish its "autonomy" by perceiving an opposing factor. "Evil" is equally valid to fight against. This division of "opposing factors" is one of the ego's principle tools to assert itself. "Nothing real can be threatened; Nothing unreal exists." Therefore, the projections of fear are not really there beyond our false projections. What is "false" is by definition "not true," and what is not true does not exist. We see this and then forget it.

Can we transcend into our True Self? This would be the Self of total forgiveness and total joy. Christs Vision is an aspect of this Self. Are we slaves of the crucifixion we make up, or are we liberated in our resurrection? Christ is the resurrection and the life, and we can align with Him to have a new perception. We need a new experience that comes from Him. His perceptions are our natural awareness. We live in God and therefore in the Christ. And we have to perceive this in all our brothers and sisters. For we cannot exclude anyone. We ascend together into this True Self. Jesus helps us accept the resurrection. This is "waking to redemption."

The freedom of interdependence is a high state of total harmony and cooperation. The ego wants “autonomy” to maintain the separation. It is an isolated entity we have constructed to give ourself a sense of identity that takes no account of our place in the Whole. “God is dependent on the Son; the Son is dependent on Him.” But this is not a loss of freedom, but a gain, because it connects us with the entire Cosmos. Why would we not want that? Why would we want to maintain separation that eventually ends in death and despair? In true Love there is total interdependence on our Creator. There is no need for defense because there is no attack, no guilt that demands punishment, and no separation that is motivated by fear.

We look at the "dynamics" of the ego today. The "autonomy" that the ego would claim for itself is in "separation." It is the interdependence of Creation, and all things in It, that brings us our Peace and Power. The ego's sense of "autonomy" is self-centered, "solipsistic," and isolated, only relating to it's circular arguments of its existence. We look in a mirror of distortion when we are using the ego's thought system. Experience is not necessarily valid for establishing our inner truth. A "separated truth" has no meaning, because Truth is One and Whole, all-inclusive. Fear is running the ego, it constantly divides us off from the Whole, and we have to look at it to dispel it.

Our inheritance is the Sonship. We cannot exclude anyone from this awareness of the WHOLE creation of God's Son. One exclusion, even of a "Hitler," would cloud our vision, and prevent us from receiving Christ's Vision. There is no condemnation of any kind in the Mind of God. Lesson 228 says, "God has condemned me not, no more do I." We must never forget the Sonship. And this is outside of time, space, and the judgments we have about the "people" who occupy this dimension. If we "hate" part of ourself, (any of our brothers) all of our understanding is lost. Markus looks at the movie, "The Zone of Interest," and the challenges we have to "condemn evil," and how the ego justifies its judgments and deeds of cruelty. It is something in us we must cleanse away and rise above.

We go from the darkness we made to the light God created. We have allowed a sense of separation to take us over. This makes us weary of the world, but it is all self-imposed. The will of God for us is the light. "Out of our joy we will create beauty in His name." What God wills for us is ours. Let us walk in the light today. The Great Light is here. It is within us. Let us claim the Light today. It is also within all of our brothers. Let go of the darkness—the grievances, the attack thoughts, the judgments, the things we are against. God wills that our glory is shared together. This is our inheritance. Let's claim it.

Healing involves a few things. First we have to see who we are as God created us, so we are no longer in denial of our Self-Identity. Then we have to listen to the Holy Spirit, the Guest we invite in as our Voice for God's guidance. Healing is a desire to "make whole," and this would include our brothers in the Sonship. None can be excluded, but the healing is of ourself first. The Holy Spirit lobbies for the end of separation. We make our Will one with God's Will that IS Wholeness. We invite the Holy Spirit to guide us in this endeavor to end our separation. We can be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom when we see the Holy Spirit is there to keep us aligned with this.

The main GIFT of the Fatherhood would be receiving the infinite Will of Creation. The Universe has no beginning and no ending, and we are part of this infinite grace. The "fear" of God's Will is because we think our true will is something different than God's. Our will and God's Will are the same in our desire for perfect happiness. Peace and Joy are the only things God Wills for us, because they are the nature of the Universe. The Universe IS JOY. Only cause for rejoicing! This is the gift of the Fatherhood that asks us to JOIN in our own creations. Our return is waking up to who we already are. It is a joyous homecoming.

There are two systems of thought. God's sacred thought system is one. The ego's separated thought system is the other. They are irreconcilable. A person cannot be in both. He is in one or the other. The question is one of our Source. Who is our "Father?" Who "Authored" us in truth? Is God our Father or the ego, standing in as our "father?" We first make up the ego, then put ourselves under its "authority." We first make us a set of false premises under which we are bound and limited. We made up a false self. Then we put ourselves under its "authority." This is why we feel separated, because the ego's premises are based on separation, isolation, loneliness, and meaninglessness. We can look at the ego and let it go. The Christ will be there, standing beside us with the Lamp of Pure Light to shine away our ego's illusions.

We deny God by denying Life, Joy, Happiness, Health, etc. "Blasphemy" is thinking we are not as God created us. He did not create us in the pain, suffering, depression that we have fallen into. These are states of "being who we are not" and therefore "blasphemy." Wrong thinking can be corrected, but we have to be willing to change our minds, and their focus. Health is the "denial" of our self-destructive thoughts of the god of sickness. The real blasphemy is the Denial of God, but God cannot be denied in reality. Only in the midst of illusions can we pretend to deny God. We are fooled by false religious theology that made God into all pervading Force attacking us "sinners" with "condemnation." We are not aware we are denying our Creator when we accept pain and suffering as real. We do not know our True Self when we fall into the appearances of sickness. This denial of God is in need of correction. The Holy Spirit will help us to see our Reality, aligned with our Creator and our Self.

The End of Sickness is merely to stop trying to fix illusions. There is just one thing we need to see about "illusions." We move our attention onto the Truth, the Perfection, the real Self we share with the Christ of Perfect Happiness. The end of sickness is simply denying that the sickness is "real." There may be some procedures to do—if you break a bone you need a doctor to put it back together. But more importantly, the thoughts that attracted that need to be addressed, and once the physical mend has taken place, the "mental mend" has to be included in the healing process. The end of Sickness is to see that we are part of God's Will, and this Will is Perfect Happiness. PEACE and JOY invite our attention, because they are consistent with God's Will, and this is the Only Answer.

We can be only sick in our ego. And this "false self" we made up is the "idol of sickness" we have made in our madness. It is not created by God, and by definition, Reality is ONLY what God created, therefore sickness is not real. What is not real is an illusion, only a projection of something that is not really there. And what is not really there is "nothing." But like a mirage that is only a figment of our imagination, but not really there, the "Idol of Sickness" is also a mirage. When we stop giving it "reality," we will see that it is nothing. This vision of the miraculous is what the Christ holds out for us. In it is perfect peace. When we accept it, we accept we accept our True Self that is never "sick." You accept it for all your brothers and sisters—the whole Sonship.

We decided to forget who we are as God created us. We once knew who we are, but then we forgot by making a false "self." This self is called the ego, and it is an illusion that brought much pain and suffering to us. Yet, The "memory" of Who we are as God Created us is still in our Mind. God is in our Memory. When we are willing to remember this True Self, we are awakening to Peace, Joy, and the Glory of our Reality. With the Holy Spirit we can fully awaken. We can accept this True Self, and return our mind to Knowledge, beyond the limitations of perception.

When we are at Home in God we have decided wholly to end our imagined separation from our Source, and therefore we are happy. And because we are unified with our Creator, we know our Creations emanate from Love and are Loving. But sometimes we are unaware of this Divine Connection, and it follows that our mind is split. Partly this, and partly that. It is our Will that can end this dilemma. When we "will there be light," the light is there, and we are unified with the Kingdom in us. Fear, guilt, anger, and other projected misperceptions banish themselves from Love. We can end this through an action of Will in which we join with the Will of God, which would be perfect happiness.

The "thoughts" that cause our pain and suffering are not facts. And because the "pain and suffering" from wrong mindedness appear so "real," it is difficult to see that "pain" is an illusion, because it is based on a "thought" that is an illusion. We believe our "nightmares" when we are in them. Be believe our wring thinking because we are in them, and keep thinking them. The "thoughts" that cause our pain and suffering are self inflicted. This Chapter would call them "idols." They are not really there, but we "think" they are. Because the have "taken form" in our experience, and we place experience as the paramount proof of a "fact," we think the pain and suffering is real. We have to see this differently and correct the "cause" in our mind.

We are arrogant to reinforce our "littleness" with thoughts like "I am not good enough. Others are more deserving than me. Etc." We over compensate with self-inflating thoughts like "I am so much better than everyone else." "Littleness or Grandiosity" will never satisfy us. Yet, we are Exalted in the Grandeur of our Creator. We share this Grandeur, this Light, with Everyone. The Glory of God pulses through us, and we have to feel this Divine Power in our very blood. The Love we share with everyone attests to this Grandeur. Beauty is everywhere. Divine Appreciation is the doorway into heaven. We can step into this awareness so easily, if we so choose to give up the illusions of "littleness" and "grandiosity."

The Atonement is obviously the way to evaluate your true Self. The Holy Spirit looks with Love on all the He perceives. The ego does not love you, and perceives you in a suspicious and even vicious way. God's will for us is happiness, and we attain that by evaluating ourselves correctly, through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. God Wills us perfect happiness now, and we need not delay our Joy. Peace abides in our true Self. Accepting the Atonement is the way to Peace. This is obvious. If we choose not to "see" our innocence, that is our free will to do. But A Course in Miracles is here to give us a different evaluation of truth, in which none of our "mistakes" of our false "self" have any real consequences. We accept our True Self by forgiving our "false self" that are opposing evaluations. The choice is obvious and simple.

For our awareness of our Whole connection to Everything, we have to join with our brothers wholeheartedly. We have to accept our brothers a part of us. To the degree we let them in, we see who we are as God Created us. Our Glory is shared, in other words, in order to experience it. It is quite simple. Each part of the Sonship we remember we add to the Sonship. We awaken through accepting our brothers as one with us. AMEN.

UNHEALED HEALERS do not see that all sickness is self-inflicted, and that the cause for this self-attack is not real. This is a Lesson for us to see that "problems" are only appearances of conflict and imbalances, but the corrections and solutions are rooted in "changing our minds." The person who is certain can see that thought determines all effects. And if there are effects he does not want, there are thoughts he has to change in order to dissolve the "problem." This is our responsibility to see that the thoughts that "made up" the problems are only thoughts, and thoughts can be changed. And we can see the illusion of these thoughts is not really there. We need the Holy Spirit to help us in this awareness. And it is the Holy Spirit that helps us heal ourselves and facilitate healing in others. This is the LIGHT that heals.