 
Location: The Kingdom of Heaven | A COURSE IN MIRACLES
STUDY GROUP WITH RAJ Good evening. And welcome to everyone who’s joining us on the Internet. During the past couple of meetings there’s been a recurring thread embodied in the following statement: The holy instant is the miracle’s abiding-place. From there, each one . . .
. . . each miracle . . . . . . is born into this world as witness to a state of mind which has transcended conflict, and has reached its peace.1
Simple and profound. And of course, the mind which has transcended conflict, and has reached to peace is the mind of the one who has practiced the holy instant: You. Now from time to time, I have shared something that Paul says to himself before each gathering, before each study group. And it goes like this:
“I allow only for that which expresses the Christ consciousness and only that which is in harmony with the purpose of Being ( with a capital ‘B’ ) the Father’s Will.” And he continues . . . “in other words, Thy Will, not mine be done. Let the reign of divine truth, life, and Love be established in me and rule out of me all self-will. And may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind and govern them.” This has been very meaningful to Paul since he employed it within the first few conversations that we had together.
Now what he didn’t realize was that that was the practice of the holy instant. He had never read the Course yet, but nevertheless, his sitting down and saying simply, “Thy Will be done, not mine” and then listening . . . there you are, the two-step. As a result of that practice, it was a very short time, less than two weeks before he heard me respond. And the conversations we had were not only inspiring but life-changing for him and very profound. To be talking with me was something quite significant to him.
But you know, it’s interesting how self-righteousness can tag along with one’s spiritual growth. And for many years after our first conversation, Paul felt that the fact that he was able to talk with me, or that I was willing to talk with him was because he had excelled in his study of truth – his religious upbringing – and that that had brought him to a point of excellence which caused him to be deserving of this experience, which of course, was utterly false. Because at the bottom line, when we had our first conversations, Paul was in dire straits . . . unemployed, with a family of three children and a wife, and none of his practice of his religious upbringing that he felt he had excelled at was correcting the problem. He was in the pits. He was failing and nothing he did was correcting the situation. That’s how competent he was, fortunately, because in the light of that circumstance, it brought him to his knees, literally. And he found himself many times on the floor with his forehead on the carpet, bowed almost as flat as one can get to the floor praying for help – asking for help. No longer thinking that he had any personal capacity or spiritual power all by himself, he abandoned it and then finally started sitting down nightly and making the statement that I just shared with everyone. And then came our first conversations and of course, all the ones since then. The saying is quite true: Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.2 When you or Paul or anyone arrives at a point where you willingly and completely abandon your own self-righteousness, your own private personal capacity to accomplish great things on your own, and you are in a state of humility which, to you, you define as failure – which is insulting, which is awful – when you arrive at that point with no more faith in yourself and your righteousness, and you sincerely ask for help, you get the help! Not because of your competence, but because of what you Are – the Son or Daughter of God whom God answers when God is approached genuinely. It’s that simple. After we began talking, Paul’s worldly situation began to change as a result of the Guidance and the clearer understanding that I was sharing with him and which he was embracing. But it wasn’t because he was making anything happen at all. It wasn’t because he was suddenly given power by virtue of his relationship with me to cause good things to happen. No. The good things happened because that’s the nature of Being. The good things happened because it’s the Father’s Will for fulfillment to be the center and circumference of the conscious experience of Being. That’s why. Now everything that you are hearing me teach about what the Course is saying is leading you to the point where you are willing to do exactly what Paul did. And especially in the last few weeks, I have been illuminating the contrast between independent self-assertive arrogant private thinking that seems to convince you that you are an authority of some kind in your own right who can make things happen and you who’s willing to abandon that, and in the quietness within you, turn your attention away from yourself and your capacity and how you feel and how right you are, and simply turn to the Father or the Holy Spirit and say, “I need help! I need to know what the truth is separate and apart from anything I personally privately think. Because what I personally privately think is arrogant self-righteousness. It is me valuing my thoughts and my words more than God’s. It is me valuing the meanings I am applying to all of Creation in preference to asking God what His Meanings are in all Creation.” You see?
Now, although Paul values the prayer he says, and although he says “let the reign of divine truth, life and love be established in me,” meaning not at his own hand but as the law of God Being the lawful orderliness and nature of Paul’s Being without Paul refuting it or modifying it in any way, he’s found during the last few weeks as we’ve been discussing self-righteousness, that he is not that willing in all situations to defer to the Holy Spirit – that which is nothing more than his right Mind – or the Father because he is so damned sure that what he thinks and what he knows is true. The only thing is that since we’ve been discussing this, as I know it is with many of you, it has caused him to become quite angry. Because there are so many instances where he knows it is appropriate for him to be upset, for him to be self-righteously angry, for him to point the finger and for him to believe that the correction of the problems must be accomplished by manipulating things “out there” instead of abandoning his vantage point – the one, the arrogant self-righteous easily angered, easily disturbed mentality.
And yet, when he yielded to that angry mindset and when he resists letting go of that kind of control, he’s miserable and there is no relief from it. In fact, it gets worse. And then, as I make it clearer to him and you, the impracticality of it, the danger of it, the destructiveness of it, that makes him even more upset. Because if you abandon it, how on earth can you ever get justice? Now at the bottom line, it isn’t that Paul or any of you are mean-spirited actually, it’s just that as we’ve discussed, you feel that the practice of self-righteousness is essential to your safety, when it’s not.
Now Paul is finding as everyone finds out, that the extended practice of self-righteousness and anger and judgment accomplishes nothing and finally something in you decides it’s not worth it to continue. And what happens? You begin to find value in discovering how to forgive. And as any of you begin to practice forgiveness . . . which means what? your withdrawal of your judgment, you become free of the control of the negative situation that you have been angry at and judgmental of. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the situation goes away but it doesn’t hook you, it doesn’t trick you into committing yourself to being ongoingly upset and righteously judgmental. And in your peace you can turn your attention elsewhere to things that are actually full of fulfillment. Now when you do that you’ve transcended conflict and you have reached to peace and you have the peace and you are supplied with the clarity and insight that lifts you into your natural loving harmonious state of mind. But you can’t do it by yourself and this experience has never occurred as a result of your doing it by yourself. You have to join with the Holy Spirit or with me or with the Father genuinely. And healing comes.
And now, going into the book: Your healing will extend, . .
. . . as we discussed last week. It will embrace everything. Your clarity will cause everything to be clarified. If you’re wearing a pair of glasses with red lenses in them, it causes everything you see to be colored, altered from its natural state even though nothing has been affected actually by it at all. And therefore when you take the glasses off, all of the distortion vanishes. All of the redness – the unnatural redness – vanishes. Your clear vision extends to everything.
Your healing will extend, and will be brought to problems that you thought were not your own. And it will also be apparent that your many different problems will be solved, as any one of them has been escaped.
You see? It cannot be their differences which made this possible, for learning does not jump from situations to their opposites, and bring the same results.
You see? So therefore, the problem must be the same problem everywhere. And it is. When you’re indulging in the orphan mentality, when you’re looking at everything through the lenses of orphanhood, everything is affected even though it is only your perspective which is out of kilter. Therefore, every problem that is identified by the orphan mentality is only part of the orphan mentality. And therefore, when the orphan mentality is abandoned, the distortions brought on by it all disappear because there was only one problem and the problem wasn’t even “out there,” the problem was in the choice of vantage point. All healing must proceed in lawful manner, in accord with laws which have been properly perceived, but never violated. Fear you not the way that you perceive them.
. . . when you’re looking out through the lens of orphanhood.
You are wrong, but there is One within you Who is RIGHT.
You see? Not one out there who is right. Not one out there who can be turned into the one that is right.
. . . there is One within you Who is RIGHT.
You see how this is not letting you off the hook, not letting you have a scapegoat, not letting you believe that there’s something outside of you that can hold you in bondage? Because you are holding yourself in bondage, you are able to get release from bondage.
Leave, then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who really understands its laws, . .
See? “I allow only for that which expresses the Christ Consciousness and I allow only for that which is in harmony with the purpose of Being, the Father’s Will.” You see? You have to defer to That which is governing and therefore, to the laws that govern.
Leave, then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who really understands its laws, and Who will guarantee that they remain unviolated and unlimited. Your part . . .
. . . and this is sort of the insulting part.
Your part is merely to apply what He has taught you to . . .
. . . what? . . . . . YOURSELF, and He will do the rest.
You’re not to apply what He has taught you to the world or to your brother or your mis-guided friend or associate or relative.
Your part is merely to apply what He has taught you to YOURSELF, and He will do the rest. And thus the power of your learning will be proved to you by all the many different witnesses it finds.
Ah-h, you take off the glasses with the red lenses and all of a sudden you have infinite witnesses to your freedom from the unnatural coloration that you had been experiencing.
And thus the power of your learning will be proved to you by all the many different witnesses it finds. Your brother first among them will be seen, . .
. . . you see? Not because you change them, but because you changed your mind about what you were seeing, not to a new personally made- up definition, but to the Meaning which the Father or the Holy Spirit has disclosed to you as that which is true.
Your brother first among them will be seen, but thousands stand behind him, and beyond each one there are a thousand more.
It’s like a domino effect, the blessing extends.
Each one may seem to have a problem which is different from the rest. Yet they are solved together.
Because the confusion in your perception, having been abandoned in favor of clarity of perception, causes you to see your brother and everything without distortion . . . and what? It causes your behavior to change, so that your behavior reflects the spontaneous appreciation that you can’t avoid when you see your brother or sister as the holy Son or Daughter of God that they Are — with Meaning, with comprehension, with understanding. And that inspires them. And their inspiration is reflected upon those in their experience inspiring them . . . behind each one are thousands. Each one may seem to have a problem which is different from the rest. Yet they are solved together. And their common answer shows the questions could not have been separate.
Even though the definitions you applied to them caused them to appear to be separate and intolerable, and unreasonable, and worthy of judgment and acts of condemnation, which of course, inspired no one to see themselves truly.
So you see, it boils down to one thing: Abandoning self-righteousness, abandoning the valuing of your private definitions and perceptions that you have created. You see? But as with Paul, when it comes right down to it, it’s infuriating to be faced with having to abandon the right to be furious, because you think it has value and you think you are right in your perceptions. And so there is no cooperation and there certainly can be no co-Creation, which is your function joined with the Father. You see?
So as someone says, “there is less and less wiggle room” and that creates distress and anger and judgment when it should not. Peace be to you to whom is healing offered.
That’s your Birthright. That is the result of practicing the two-step and reached to Peace. Peace be to you to whom is healing offered.
And I’m going to say, because healing is constantly offered, that Peace be to you to whom healing is received. Peace accompanies healing that you are willing to receive. And healing is the realization that you do not wish to practice self-righteousness any more. And you will learn that peace is given you when you accept the healing for yourself.
Now, you may make headway in more consistently listening and choosing only to give voice to what the Holy Spirit shares with you in any given moment, because the perspective of what is really going on is available to you. And then it may seem that there are circumstances in your world that are totally unreasonable, totally unfair, totally cruel, totally disheartening, and it can throw you for a loop and you can lose your balance. And if it’s not too severe you can get your balance back relatively easily. But then if you have three or four or five truly significant . . . well, negative experiences, impactful experiences, you might become obsessively engaged in ranting and raving and expressing your self-righteousness because all you can see is the unfairness, the illegitimacy of what you’re being harmed by and the fact that you don’t deserve it. And you are absolutely confident in your perspective and you are not about to bring one little iota of forgiveness into the picture because it isn’t warranted, and you know damned well and good that it isn’t and therefore, you refuse. Now this is exactly the time that you must go against the current of your self-righteousness. You must find a way to shut up. You must find a way to still the rabid mind that seems to be raging in you. You must be willing to back off from it. You must be willing to do the two-step. You must be willing to shut up first of all. It’s not something you want to do. But not doing it keeps you in bondage to the feeling and experience of being an orphan, which you are not. And so you must stand in the face of that which seems overwhelming and shut up! Remember in that moment that someone told you that under these circumstances shut up! . . be still, meditate, soak in a hot tub, go and get a massage, do whatever it takes to distract you from the compulsive reacting so that you can become still and then inquire of the Father, “What do I need to know? Fill me up with the true Perspective. Let the rein of divine truth, life and love be established in me and rule out of me all self-will.”
You must take that practical step. And you must take it over and over and over if necessary until the invitation to self-righteousness no longer grabs you. There is no value in knowing about the holy instant if you don’t put it into practice. Again:
Peace be to you to whom is healing offered. And you will learn that peace is given you when you accept the healing for yourself.
You see? When you shut up long enough to let the healing register with you because you’re not pushing it away with the loudness of your anger.
Its total value . . .
. . . of the healing.
Its total value need not be appraised by you to let you understand that you have benefited from it.
You’ll be able to feel the benefit, because you’ll be experiencing Peace.
What occurred within the instant which love entered in without attack . . .
. . . in other words, in the absence of your self-righteousness . . .
. . . will stay with you forever.
You see? It will stay with you forever. You will never ever again be able to get so far into the misery of self-righteousness.
Your healing will be one of its effects, as will your brother’s.
I can promise you, you don’t get self-righteously angry about a plant that has a leaf that turned brown. The only situations in which you become self-righteous are in relationships with brothers and sisters, your fellowman. Right?
You must arrive at a point where you hold them blameless and correct your misperception and choose for your peace so that you yourself will be filled with the Father’s Love and Perspective that causes you to look upon your brother with Love. That is the answer. Everywhere you go will you behold its multiplied effects.
Man, when your perspective is not dark and miserable, it’s not dark and miserable, it’s illuminated and beautiful and joyous. No way to avoid it. Yet all the witnesses that you behold will be far less that all there really are. Infinity cannot be understood by merely counting up its separate parts.
And here’s the simplicity: God thanks you for your healing, for He knows it is a gift of love unto His Son, and therefore is it given unto Him.
When you say in so many words, “I allow only for that which expresses the Christ Consciousness,” it means that you’re willing to turn your attention only to that which expresses the Christ Consciousness and that is your gift to His Son, which is therefore, given unto the Father. You see? Right now the practice of self-righteousness can only occur in a world and universe of distinctly separate entities that have no commonality or unity. That is hell! It doesn’t embody the Meaning of Creation that the Father is embodying as all of His Sons and Daughters. The solution which is where you do not hold everyone to be separate and distinct, but you abandon your made up perceptions and you look at your brothers and sisters through your Father’s Eyes and experience the unity of All, not losing individuality, but losing differentness that is constituted of what is not equal in nature or character or substance.
The result of the practice of the holy instant is the experience of unity therefore, absolute infinite harmony and beauty and order. That is what you regain in abandoning your so-called right to think on your own, by yourself as an authority in your own right, all of which comes under the heading of self-righteousness, the number one killer. I love you all. And I look forward to being with you next time. A Course In Miracles (reference pages) Chapter 27 – Section: THE HEALING EXAMPLE
1Sparkly Book – p.634, 2nd Full Par. / JCIM – p.266, 5th Full Par. / CIMS – p.537, Par. 48
Chapter 19 – Section: THE ATTRACTION OF PAIN
First Edition – p. 537, 1st Par. / Second Edition – p.578, Par. 9
2Corinthians 1:8-11
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A Course in Miracles Study Group with Raj, August 4th 2013
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TRANSCRIPT & AUDIO 08-04-2013
General Discussion -> Transcripts & Audio 2013-2014
