 
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. It is three days before Christmas. And so tonight I have a Christmas message. And in order to give perspective, we will begin by going back in time to the time of the Exodus from Egypt, when Moses led the Israelites out of bondage. And I’m bringing this up because the advent of the Christ appearing on earth was the beginning of the Exodus from bondage to a false perception of one’s self and a false perception of the Kingdom of Heaven. After crossing the Red Sea and no longer being pursued by the Egyptians, there came a point where the people grew restless – their faith being tested. And Moses took leave and went up onto a mountain and did the “two-step.” He silenced “human will” within himself and in so many words said, “Father, what is the truth here? What needs to be known?” And he listened. And the product of the listening came forth as what have been called, “The Ten Commandments," let us say, the understanding of what humanity means as lived by those who embrace it as an integral part of escaping the bondage of illusion. And Moses came back down from the mountain with the tablets that the Commandments were engraved upon. And when he came back to the people he discovered that their faithlessness had taken over. And that they had resorted to idolatry and debauchery and immoral behavior and he believed what he saw! He saw fault. He saw immorality. He saw people who didn’t deserve what he had gone up to the mountain to get and brought back, because he was convinced by what the people were convinced of about themselves. And he joined them in that faithlessness and threw down the tablets and broke them so that the Commandments were lost.
Now the question is: Is seeing what is wrong – identifying it, labeling it – is that the answer that corrects the wrong? Absolutely not! And so there was no way to proceed because the freedom, the Birthright of man could not be achieved through faithlessness and doubt and immorality. And so Moses had to go up to the mountain again. In other words, he had to stop regarding what he was convinced he saw. He had to abandon the negative assessment of all of those who were following him into freedom out of bondage. He had to let go of that and turn his attention elsewhere. He had to turn his attention to where the truth was available to experience – to Know and to be from. And so he did the two-step again. And this time when he came down from the mountain, he did not abandon the Vision the Father gave him, and he proceeded to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. There is a simple but profound lesson in this. The correction of illusion does not occur as a result of making a reality out of it – pinpointing it, labeling it, judging it, being offended by it and in self-righteousness, attempting to get rid of it. That behavior is behavior that arises out of faithlessness, not out of the result of practicing the two-step. Because practicing the two-step uncovers what is truly true. It uncovers the Good News. It uncovers that which is worth making a joyful noise about. Because it does not confirm what isn’t real. You see? And in the absence of that confirmation and the Vision of a, for lack of better words, new horizon, the movement into freedom is assured. And this is the important point. And this is the Message of Christmas. This is the Gift that the appearance of the Christ brought and gave to the world. It’s important. It’s important not only because the living of It involves the right use of your mind that heals, it keeps the attention from staying bound in the orphan mentality – in the separated tiny, independent, Sourceless, meaningless experience of being.
Now, I want you to contemplate my life from Christmas day on. And I want you to notice how much of my time was spent calling out the sinners, pointing out their sins . . . chastising them, correcting them. You can easily understand that if my attention had been given there, there would have been no healings. There would have been no transformation, because none of that would have revealed the divinity of every single man, woman and child on the planet. And it wouldn’t have uncovered the Kingdom of Heaven that everything actually is, but nobody sees because they are convinced by their faithlessness, that it’s just a material world and universe. There is no potential for healing or correction there. My life did not convey that message. My life, my words, my brotherhood uncovered the fact that you are my Brothers and Sisters. That we are One divine family with one Father: God. That we, each one of us . . . every one of us is holy.
Now there’s a general belief that God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son to what? To save every sinner on the globe because everyone on the globe had been born in sin? That’s the wrong emphasis. That was not my purpose. And that is not what I engaged in. I engaged in providing the Vision which illuminated faith because it re-awakened in each one the glimmering memory of his or divinity, of his or her divine worth.
If I had magnified everyone’s poor assessment of themselves, it would have further depressed everyone. It would have exacerbated the problem, not resolved it. Now, when Moses came back down from the mountain, the people were still behaving badly, were still expressing their faithlessness. But this time he didn’t believe it. And in so many words, in his mind, the declaration was, “tain’t so! tisn’t so! This is not the truth! I will not be swayed by what isn’t true, by what isn’t so.” And he wasn’t.
And the message of my life and the reason for my arrival on what you call “Christmas” was to uncover the fact that it “tain’t so” that you’re sinners. It “tain’t so” that you’re just mortals. It “tain’t so” that you are unholy messes. That’s the gospel. That’s the good news that lifts you out of your poor assessment of yourselves and allows you to let your mind be inspired with the truth about you – you holy Son of God, you holy Daughter of God – who are my Brothers and Sisters – equals in actuality.
Whatever else you believe . . . “tain’t so!” And my purpose is to convey over and over, “tain’t so!” Don’t you dare believe it! Don’t continue to carry that negative false self-assessment forward with you any further. “Tain’t so!” Now one of the reasons I’m bringing this up is because you all know that you are suffering from false perceptions of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the holy Sons and Daughters of God that are your Brothers and Sisters, and because that is presented to you daily, you need to remember to daily acknowledge, “tain’t so!” rather than succumbing to the invitation to believe what tain’t so and joining in reaction at that level of divine ignorance. That’s the point.
If you do not take that step of declaring that it “tain’t so!” the fact that it isn’t so can’t manifest. In other words, the truth of the holy Son of God and Daughter of God that each of you Are can’t emerge as a conscious experience for you or the Brother or Sister that you are acknowledging it about. Healing will not occur. Now, all of you at this time are very well aware that communication at all levels is being abused. Its purpose is to deceive. It does it through insinuation, and the suggestion that what is said is factual without ever backing it up with facts. And because it is consciously designed to manipulate your mind for reasons you have no awareness of at all, you must be wise so that you don’t become used for purposes that are destructive to you or those ones or those things that deceitful information is being shared about.
Now, I can hear someone saying, “Well, what if the information can be backed up with facts?” Well, hey, Moses could see with his own eyes that the people had created calves made of gold and jewels that they were worshipping. He had the proof. It was a fact. Well, that suckered him in. He bought it hook, line and sinker and said it is true, “these people are not worthy of the holiness of this movement of freedom that they’re in the middle of. I am angry with them!” And he lost his divine perspective.
But again, after collecting himself and engaging in the two-step again and turning to the Father and saying, “What is the truth here?” The Commandments – what was needed at that time – were given again. And he brought them down and this time the behavior didn’t prove anything of value to him and he knew, “tain’t so!” and he didn’t buy into it hook, line and sinker and proceeded to lead the way out of that ignorance and out of that faithlessness into the Promised Land. In other words, the Answer – the clarity, the wholeness – that’s the message. When it comes to literature, or any “good story,” there is always a protagonist, there is always the good and the bad balancing off of each other, attempting to overcome each other. And the more conflict there is, the greater potential there is for the story to become great. And everyone likes it. Everyone is turned on by a good story, a story of real conflict in which good does triumph.
But of course, now and then, there has to be a story where evil triumphs so that no one gets to feeling too good, and stays bound to the dynamics of good story telling. Why am I bringing this up? I’m bringing it up because there are suggestions coming from, we’ll say, metaphysical or spiritual sources that you are all coming into times of great potential disaster. And in light of that, directions are being given as to how you can play a part in overcoming the evil. You see? And everyone looks at it and says, “Wow, these are the elements of a good story!” The bigger the evil, the bigger the disaster that’s ahead of us, the greater the truth will be, the greater the reality will be that will override it. And I am going to take my part in what? The drama – the conflict. You see?
And you get sucked in, hook, line and sinker, into a fabric of conflict which you are familiar with and from which you are able to glean a sense of purpose that is gratifying and self-satisfying and causes you to bring commitment to the conflict – to your part in the conflict. And no one is saying to the whole thing, to the novel – the story that’s unfolding – “tain’t so!” Nobody is saying, “We don’t need a good story or a bad story, we want to be out of the realm of story and the necessary conflict which stories involve.”
So, you say, “What if I have proof that our leaders or our governments or other governments or other leaders are dishonest and I have proof of it?” And not unlike that, the question is, “What if my sister or brother or myself has terminal cancer? I have the facts, it is the truth!” Well, it’s the same call: “Tain’t so . . . tain’t so . . . tain’t so!” You don’t actually have to yell it, I’m being firm about it because until there is an acknowledgement that it “tain’t so” the illusion of it can’t collapse, its seeming reality can’t fade, so that what is true about your leaders or your governments or your banking systems, and their real humaneness can come through.
The message of Christmas is: You are my Brothers. You are my Sisters. I am the Christ. You are the Christ. We are equals held perfectly, immaculately in the Mind of the God no matter what you might think you are or believe you are. No matter what your apparent history seems to state about you, you are being brought out of a state of bondage by the uncovering of the fact that the bondage is illusory not because it’s real but you have a powerful enough God-given truth to overwhelm it and destroy it. Is that clear? The correction of the illusion lies in the realization that the illusion has no actual presence. It “tain’t so!” at any level. That’s the message of Christmas. It re-introduces humanity into the conscious experience of Being, together with its absolute underlying divinity – yours. You are being constantly invited to hold your Brothers in disrespect. Because whoever’s inviting you to do it, has a profit to be made from your believing it, has a benefit to be enjoyed by the downfall of whoever they are discrediting.
Again, whether they back it up with facts or not, there is strain occurring around your globe as the truth is being twisted and bent into untruth so that you might validate the untruth and stop being the Presence of That which carries forward the movement out of Egypt, out of bondage, out of mortality. The message of Christmas is one of joy. And the question is, how are you going to use your mind now that you know that you are the holy Son or Daughter of God and that every single one of your Brothers and Sisters is also. And that you all deserve to experience your sinlessness, your guiltlessness. Because you could never have become what you have been convinced you are, or that you have convinced yourself that you are without ever referring back to the very Source of you – your Being.
The message of Christmas says: Don’t be taken in by appearances. Don’t be taken in by “the facts,” if they don’t return you to the mountaintop. If they don’t confirm to you the need of not abandoning the Vision that the Father provides of your divinity and your Brothers’ divinity. You see? You’re here to be the leaven that leavens the whole lump, that lifts and inspires everything above and out of the state of illusion – the idolatry, the lasciviousness, the immorality.
The Gift of Christmas is Love. Plain, pure and simple. It is Love that insists upon not being sucked in. It is Love that causes you to be unable to say, “It tis so, when it tain’t so!” And to have the nerve and the guts and the commitment to reverse the suggestion that presents itself to you that says, “you have justification to be disturbed and you have justification to blame your brother, punish your brother and use whatever force it takes to get him to change his behavior.” Well, I’ll tell you something: If you walk around pointing at everyone and saying, “you’re a sinner…you’re a sinner…you’re a sinner…you’re a sinner, I’ll have nothing to do with you until you stop being a sinner, you sinner.” If you do that, everyone is stuck.
You’ve got to ask yourself where you’re giving your attention? Are you looking down or are you looking up? Are you looking at things in your immediate vicinity or are you looking at the horizon? Are you looking from a limited negative viewpoint or the infinite vantage point that the Father provides you with and that its worth your reaching for at every moment. Be careful. When you bandy about words that characterize, or shall I say mis-characterize the holy Sons and Daughters of God who are in your world at this time, you don’t have any other brothers and sisters to have a corrected vision of. So work with the materials at hand.
Oh, I know . . . you could interpret that to mean I’m saying “work with the lousy materials you have at hand and refine them.” No. The materials you have at hand no matter how negatively you are assessing them are the Sons and Daughters of God – the holy ones that are worth your denying the illusions about. If you go around, as I said, saying “you’re a sinner…you’re a sinner” you keep everyone else looking down, instead of lifting up their minds to the infinite view. You’re here to do something more than identify and peg problems and illuminate them. You’re here to see it like Moses did and if you’re taken in by it, return to the Father, go back to the mountaintop – do the two-step – so that your Vision is coming not from the world, but from the Mind of God that is your real Mind.
Because therein lies the Answer that you can share with your brother that is of such Meaning that he gladly lets go of his poor self-assessment because the truth is so much more meaningful. But if you’re going to do that through the right use of your mind, you’re going to have to acknowledge that the illusions you see simply aren’t so and stop energizing them. Be wise. Deceit has not always been the primary means of motivating and manipulating the population. But with the information explosion so that it’s not only through mass media, but through the internet, it is easier than ever before for mis-information and dis-information to be given. And for those who like a good story to be that which sucks them in, be alert! you holy Son and Daughter of God, so that you don’t get sucked in and you don’t leave the Father’s Vantage Point. You don’t abandon the two-step. And you remember that in any way, that you can assess an illusion to be real and justification for condemnation or self-righteousness, you have lost your perspective. And the Promised Land will not be reached.
Love your brother. Love one another. If indeed your brother is engaging in activities that are a result of his poor self-assessment and he’s experiencing bondage, you cannot just say, “his behavior is wrong. He’s lost. He doesn’t deserve the truth.” The call is for you to refuse to receive the invitation to believe that any part of the illusion is real. Because the Answer does not lie in whatever follows that acknowledgement.
The message of Christmas is: Love one another you holy Sons and Daughters of God as I love you, as the Father loves you, as the Holy Spirit loves you. Any justification for anything else will not heal. But your commitment to the truth that you’re willing to listen for by going beyond the appearances will heal, will cause the Promised Land – the Kingdom of Heaven – to be revealed to you here and now. How are you going to be? How are you going to behave? I have suggested before that you express the wish to see . . . “I wish to see the evidence of Love. I wish to be the evidence of Love. I wish to see the more of what God is Being right here than what I’m seeing.”
These desires place your attention in the infinite vantage point on the horizon as it were. And it is your Birthright to be experiencing the result. You must care enough about your brothers to find a way to go within and do the two-step, engage in the holy instant because you want to see the guiltlessness and nothing else of your Brother, of your Sister. Sticking with that desire and that commitment is the being of the statement that the illusion, “tain’t so!” and it is the Answer.
May your holy days be full of glory and joy because you’re finding release from finding fault as though that’s an integral part of Waking up – of embodying the very reason the Christ appeared on that first Christmas. I love you all. Love one another.
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A Course in Miracles Study Group with Raj, December 22nd 2013
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TRANSCRIPT & AUDIO 12-22-2013
General Discussion -> Transcripts & Audio 2013-2014
