A COURSE IN MIRACLES
STUDY GROUP

WITH RAJ

And so, before we begin, let’s all take a few moments to be quiet together.

[Quiet time]

Okay.  I’m going to begin by making this statement:

                                                       “Every single one of you is guilty of being conditioned.” 

Everyone is guilty of having a mindset which governs your perspective.  It can be a cultural mindset, it can be a social mindset, it can be a religious mindset . . . it can be a combination of them all.  But this mindset governs you.  It governs what you let in, it governs what you keep out.  And the mindsets of different cultures can have opposite values so that what would cause one to feel guilty in one culture causes someone in another culture to feel whole and divine, even.

Now I used the word “guilty” because as long as one has a mindset, as long as one is conditioned to believe in any particular way, one is biased in his perceptions of everything.  And biases that do not allow you to have a larger perspective, constitute a state of ignorance that calls for correction – where greater intelligence and greater understanding replaces the ignorance and there is less bias.

It’s important to understand this. 

Because it is by means of the conditionings which you have been taught and which you have even taught yourselves, you withhold recognition of value and divine Meaning in various parts of your world, in various individuals, in various cultures and that absolutely disallows for the successful practice of the two-step, where you ask, “Father, what is the truth here?” and you listen for the answer unbiased.  You will not be able to hear the healing answer if your conditioning causes your listening to torque, or put through a sieve the ultimate truth that the Father would present, or the Holy Spirit would disclose to you.  

And so it is something that everyone, at the bottom line, wants to and needs to get rid of – abandon.

Now, we’ve been talking about covering your Brothers’ back.  We’ve been talking about Brotherhood and Family and the fact that bringing the qualities and aspects of Brotherhood and Family into play, is the specific thing which will transform the world and correct the problems that everyone is suffering from.  It’s the only means.

Now here’s the bottom line – the bottom line problem – when it comes to the willingness to cover your Brother’s or Sister’s back.  And the problem is, that in order to do it, you have to be free of judgment against that Brother or Sister, you really have to come to a place within yourself where you see your Brother’s or Sister’s innocence. 

That can be difficult.  It doesn’t have to be, but it can be difficult and it is very often difficult.  So I want to talk for a few minutes about covering your Brother’s back. 

You realize that every bit of growth is a growth from ignorance to greater intelligence – greater understanding.  It’s always a movement out of something less than the best – less than desirable, something called, “a problem,” something going on in an arena which is difficult to cope with and full of practices and attitudes that are mean-spirited, that are unloving and destructive.

And so, when you’re willing to cover your Brother’s back, it means you’re willing to step into an intimacy with him or her where there is stress and strain and where there is need for healing, because perhaps, they’re confronted by a terminal illness.

Now let’s start with the easiest situation where you would practice the holy instant and be willing to cover your Brother’s back, which means being willing to be intimate enough to want to know what is the truth about her or him – what needs to be known?  And perhaps the easiest situation and the one that everyone might most desire and call “a miracle” is where a Brother or a Sister expresses a distress, perhaps a distress that is causing them to be non-functional at the moment.  And you, because you see their innocence and because you have enquired of the Father, “What is the truth here?” find a few words, maybe ten or twenty sentences that come to you to share . . . and as a result of it, the friend acts like a load has dropped from his or her shoulders, brightens up, and gets up and proceeds to participate in life with agreeability and enthusiasm, instantly transformed.

And one would say, “Thank you God that was a miracle!  I never would have thought that what I said would have had that effect because of course, I didn’t figure out what to say.”

Another similar type of situation would be one where you would perhaps, notice that the rash of measles has started to show up on your chest and arms and you turn to the Father . . . and almost before you could say, “What is the truth here?” you find one word tumbling out of your mouth: “Ridiculous!”  And you move on with what you’re doing and ten seconds later, you look back and the rash is gone.

Once again you would say, “Wow! that’s the kind of transformation I would like to see from being willing to cover my Brother’s back, by being willing to want to know what the truth is here.  It’s easy.  And it’s almost like magic.

And what I want to make clear tonight is, that if that’s the only thing or the only way in which you would consider transformation as a result of covering your Brother’s back to be a miracle, you would be wrong and you would close yourself off to the other kinds of miracles that occur as a result of covering your Brother’s back by being willing to stand with him or her dependably with commitment.

Now, one of the reasons that the examples I just gave you seem desirable is because they’re quick!  It doesn’t take much from you for very long.  It’s amazing.  And you don’t have to keep listening – you think that you don’t. 

You don’t realize that the fact that such transformation occurred so easily because you did pay attention, ought to teach you that paying attention in every moment, asking in every moment, is bound to bring forth transformation again and again and again . . . now . . . now . . . now . . . now.

And so, because the easy miracle happened, you go on your way thinking your own thoughts, coming to your own conclusions until you say the next opportunity comes when someone presents to you a call for help.

Hey, in the interim, between the last miracle and the next time someone makes a call for help, you’ve been walking along your merry way suffering from, or guilty of your conditioning which isn’t allowing you to see the truth about everything you’re looking at, and is causing you not to experience your right Mind – your true Self, and the experience of the Kingdom of Heaven that is the only thing actually going on.

So during this interim period, you haven’t gotten off scot-free.  You’re still guilty and suffering from conditioned thinking – a conditioned mindset that is interfering with your seeing the Kingdom of Heaven constantly – livingly.  You see?

Now there are situations where you need to be willing to cover your Brother’s back.  And again, mind you, all of these examples and the whole purpose of covering your Brother’s back is to reestablish Brotherhood . . . to reestablish the experience of Family in its true aspect.

So you may find the opportunity to cover your Brother’s back and you listen.  And you are led to take a step.  And you take the step and the step causes an event to occur.  What’s happened is not yet the solution.  “Oh, yeah . . . okay, this one’s not going to be one of the easy ones . . . I can see that . . . okay.”  And you could even ask yourself at that point whether you want to pursue it further.  But the need is to ask further: “Father, what is the truth here since the problem is not solved yet even though movement has occurred.  What is needed here? What is the truth that needs to be known?” 

And the truth that needs to be known will be revealed to you and it will be another step.  The step may be, pause and don’t do anything right now and let the movement that was just initiated come to fruition.  And then you have to continue to ask, “Is it time now?  Is there something to be done now?”  And then you will be given further instruction once the movement that was initiated brings about its fruition.

In the process of these steps where you continue to ask for direction, because the total healing or correction has not yet occurred, you may be brought into a position where you have to, I’m going to say, be wise.  Which means do some things without talking about them, without publicizing them because they will also promote certain results that will pave the way for more public steps to occur without being thwarted, all because you were guided to and you were willing to be silent – secret about what you were doing. 

And it may cause you to be a little uncomfortable and you will have to ask about that, “Father or Holy Spirit . . .” or ask your Guide, “What is the reason for this?  Am I hearing you correctly?  Am I to proceed this way?”  And as long as you genuinely ask and you are not unwilling to hear the answer, the answer will be given.

And this miracle may take a week.  This miracle may take a month, depending upon the situation.  But mind you, the steps that are taken and the results that are the success of the steps will always be accomplishing the impossible, or at least they will be accomplishing what to you seems to be impossible.

Mind you, I said that all of these practices of the holy instant are going to be occurring in less than desirable circumstances.  You see? 

And so, you might say, it could be labor-intensive in the sense that it calls for a degree of attention to your Guidance that you perhaps have not brought into play before and which constitutes an act of Brotherhood that you may never have expressed quite so completely before – an experience of Brotherhood that the one you are covering the back of feels an experience of Brotherhood to a degree that they have never had before.

And so if it takes longer and if it doesn’t seem to be easy as a breeze, don’t misunderstand, the dedication is still called for.  The willingness to see the innocence of the one whose back you are covering needs to be held onto no matter how discouraging things might seem to be.

Your Brother is worth standing with . . . again:  your Sister is worth standing with, as you cover their back for the purpose of correcting an unjust or an unkind or a life threatening situation.

Now, if you are involved in covering the back of someone who you don’t know very well or someone you do know who you like, it’s easier to follow through with the “hard work” than it is with someone you do know and for one reason or another, don’t like.  And this is where the real task is for you, because you are going to have to find a way to set aside your conviction that that one does not deserve your taking the time or putting forth the effort to cover their back, because you know they’re not innocent, because you’ve had experience with them before and they’ve screwed you!  And you know it and you suffered.  And they could care less.  They did it and they went on their merry way.

And so what right do they have to have you be their benefactor and be willing to step up and cover their back.  They don’t deserve it.  They are not innocent!

I know that every single one of you has someone in your experience that fits that category and that you have that reaction to.  Well, thank goodness you’re not God, because that is not God’s perspective . . . thank God.  And thank God it is not God’s perspective because you who are not nearly as guilty as them, are still walking around guilty of being governed by a mindset, a conditioning that does not allow you to see other things clearly as God is Being them and as parts of the Kingdom of Heaven that they are.

Well, hey, your insistence upon seeing things the way you see them is your insistence upon not seeing things the way God is Being them.

Uh-h . . . how guilty does that make you . . . how unworthy does that make you when you are straightforwardly confronting God and disagreeing with Him?

Oh, so you’ve been doing this like so many others, and Oh, last month when you went to the doctor you got a report that you have cancer, or that there’s a problem with your liver and you’re going to have to have a liver transplant urgently.  And maybe there won’t be any livers available.  Oh well, you probably deserve it.  You probably deserve this problem.  You probably don’t deserve healing.  Bullshit! 

You are the holy Son, you are the holy Daughter of God every single one of you no matter what you’re believing, no matter what conditioning is causing you to see things other than the way God is Being them and Seeing them – including you.

You have not succeeded in becoming what God did not Create.  And therefore, you are still innocent and you still deserve to at least have me covering your back.  But you know what?  You deserve to have those around you covering your back with the same conscious insistence on your innocence that I bring to it . . . the same conscious insistence on your innocence that can register with you and change your mind, or shall I say, change your mindset, your conditioning so that you’re no longer insisting upon seeing your definitions and can see the Father’s definitions – the Father’s Meanings – which are perfect and don’t include cancer or liver disease or anything else.

Innocence . . . I tell you, every single one of you hearing my voice and every single one whether they’re hearing my voice or not is, as I said before, the holy Son or Daughter of God who hasn’t become anything else and therefore, your innocence as the present Expression of God is secure and unchanged and deserves to be acknowledged and witnessed to and held up for all to have the opportunity to see and recognize.  That’s what Family is for.  That is what is needed today.  That is what Brotherhood is.  That is why we practice the holy instant.

Everyone makes mistakes.  Those mistakes cannot condemn you to what God never conceived of, or included in Creation.  It’s simply a call for realization or the rediscovery of innocence and lovability.  No matter what mistakes you made you never became a mortal and therefore, you never became something different from the holy Son of God and therefore, God has never stopped Loving you.  And it is God’s current, present Expression of Love as you, and toward you, that uncovers and undoes all the apparently valid justifications for your being a mortal, for you dying, for you suffering, for you not being healed.

Now, it’s important for each one of you to open up to the experience of God’s Love for you.  It’s really important, because it will transform you.  And it will transform the way you look at your Brothers and Sisters.  And no matter what is going on that seems to present the appearance of justifiable sin, disease and death, it needs to be seen for the ridiculous misinterpretation and misunderstanding of your Brother or Sister or the World that has no meaning because it has no cause.

Now in the Text we are reading about the Obstacles to Peace.  And I will tell you, that one of the biggest obstacles to peace is the right you think you have to judge your Brother or Sister and condemn them to suffering when you will go to all the lengths you can not to be indicted yourself by those things.

I will tell you something, and you will have to remember this in order to get out of that suffering yourself:  You were screwed because you weren’t joined with the Holy Spirit or the Father when your Brother or Sister, as a result of their conditioning, behaved in what seemed to them to be the only rational way to behave in order to preserve and protect themselves.  You see? 

What they were doing was about them.  You thought it was about you.  You reacted.  You moved into self-protection and a returned attack instead of at that moment saying, “Father, what is the truth here?  What is this one sharing about himself or herself?  What is the conditioning that is causing the blindness that makes this one attack me?”  You see?

If you had, there would have been no injustice in your experience. 

And so you both played a role in an illusion.  And one of you is going to have to abandon that role and be in a new way.  And a new way is the practice of the holy instant and a willingness to be Family, the willingness to be a Brother or a Sister in the intimacy of involvement that heals.

That’s the simple lesson for tonight . . . one not difficult to grasp and one that is more transformational than you can imagine.

I will say this, when you are covering someone’s back who is severely frightened, whose mindset, whose conditioning is so narrow and limited that almost nothing that goes on can be seen in a Loving Light, you will be engaged in one of the more laborious miracle processes that there is to be involved in. 

You must realize that re-education is going to have to occur so that the conditionings that are binding that one are undone.  And you may not be the one to do it, but don’t be too quick to abandon it.  There may be others needed to help that one begin to take the practical steps with new perceptions that are more loving and more trusting and more intelligent.  That one is worth the effort. 

Again, that one is worth the effort.  You will have to listen carefully so that you do not get abused in the process while they’re still so afraid that they can’t do anything but be resistant.  But remember, just as you are deserving of every bit of help you can get in your Awakening, and you need me to stand with you and you need the Holy Spirit to stand with you endlessly helping you, so does your Brother or Sister.

So, I love you very much.  And I look forward to being with you next time.

A Course In Miracles (reference pages)

Raj did not read from the Course tonight