Rev. Kay Hunter
I have been a minister for the past twenty-two years. Prior to that, I was a practicing Catholic for forty-seven years. I have been a student of the New Testament since I was very young. And have always wanted to know “the rest of the story.” I have found the rest of the story in the Way of Mastery.
Jesus’ message in the New Testament is the same message, but greatly expanded, as in A Course in Miracles, and now His message is expanded even further in the Way of Mastery. Jesus has finally made clear his full message and intent contained in the New Testament in a way everyone can understand it and apply it in their daily lives.
A student and teacher of A Course in Miracles since 1982, I now include the Way of Mastery as part of in my classes. Since I have been doing that, I find that my students can finally understand Jesus’ message and can use the straightforward steps given to finally implement his teaching. When I presented the message on forgiveness from the Way of Mastery to my congregation, for the first time they were able to “get it.”
What I have found from a lifetime (I am now almost 79) of studying Jesus’ words is that his simple message first presented in the New Testament is expanded upon in A Course in Miracles, and then further expanded in a much easier way to understand in the Way of Mastery.
With the Way of Mastery, he returns to using the language of the people, just the way he spoke when he walked the earth.
Then, although Jesus was a scholar in the classical languages of Greek and Hebrew, he chose to speak in the language of the people, Aramaic, so that the people could easily understand him. At that time, he gave practical examples of how to deal with the oxen alongside the road. And now in the Way of Mastery , he again speaks in the understandable language of the people, and gives us examples of how to implement his teachings while stuck in traffic on the highway!
Even though the message is the same as in the New Testament, it is greatly expanded, and now accessible to everyone to implement into their lives with the very practical application provided in the Way of Mastery.
Here are a few examples of how Jesus’ message in the New Testament has been expanded first in A Course in Miracles and then expanded and clarified even further in the Way of Mastery :
1. The Greatest of the Commandments In Matthew 22:37-39 of the New Testament, when Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment, he said:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
John 15:12:
“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
John 15:17:
“These things I command you, that you love one another.”
In A Course in Miracles, he expands his message of loving one another, and loving our God, by loving our neighbor as ourselves:
“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself."
In the “Way of Mastery”, Jesus again takes this teaching to a deeper level. He gives us some very wonderful guidelines about how to love ourselves (since most of us do not know how to love ourselves) so that we might truly love our neighbor as ourselves. And therefore, truly understand the great love of God.
Jesus says that until we really learn to love ourselves, we are going to love others the same way that we love ourselves.
And if I don’t love me, then what I am pretending to give to someone else is something that I don’t see that I really have--and that’s self love.
And when I am trying to love God that I don’t even know, can’t really see, I am going at that in a manner that is very difficult for me.
Where if I had learned to appreciate the God within me--all those God-qualities that are within me, then I have the ability to love myself, God, and my neighbor. As we learn to truly love the God within us, we then can extend that love outward to everyone around us.
In the Way of Mastery this is expanded upon even further:
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
“It is impossible to extend praise of the Creator without fully loving oneself. Without embracing and loving the particular manifestation of God as you, you cannot fully step into the complete expression of the praise of the Creator.
Therefore, you have heard me say unto you many times, that the veil that keeps you from the kingdom is the lack of Self-love. Self-love is essential to return to the kingdom. For Self-love is the love of the Creator. You cannot love the Creator while rejecting the Creator’s creation.”
“Self-love is the perfection of all spiritual practice. Self-love is the final, shining ray of light that illuminates the heart of the individuated ray of light that you are. Self-love transfigures the mind, the emotional body, and even the physical body to the degree that it strongly shines into the cells of the body.”
2. Judgement
In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus speaks of judgement.
In Matthew 7:1-3, he says:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”
In A Course of Miracles, Jesus speaks of judgment many times in both the Text and the Lessons. He says that not only should we not judge, but in truth, we really cannot judge because we do not know what is in that other person’s mind. He says that when we judge, we are actually judging out of our own perception and what comes out when we judge is actually what is within us that we are using to judge.
“Judgment is not an attribute of God.”
In the “Way of Mastery” , Jesus further expands on the subject of judgment, clearly elaborating on our misperceptions of and projections upon another. He says that we have to forgive ourselves for the desire to judge others because in judging others, we think we are getting it off of us and we don’t have to look at it. Or that is the appearance, that it doesn’t have anything to do with me, it is you who are at fault. Where actually when we are judging another, it is what is within ourselves that we don’t like about ourselves that we are projecting out onto others. He explains that as long as we are projecting our limited perception onto another, we can’t heal it within ourselves. He shows us how to correct this.
“Judgment causes the very cellular structure to break down. If you could see this, you would never judge again. When you judge, even the cells of your body go crazy. They vibrate in a completely dissonant way. There is contraction. The fluids do not move through the cells. The nutrients do not become transported or delivered to the cells. The waste matter is not processed properly. Everything gets clogged up, and there is dis-ease.”
“Judgment begets judgment. For nothing can produce except that which is like itself. An acorn cannot produce a fish. A man and a woman cannot produce an acorn. The thoughts you hold about yourself will reproduce themselves. When you look upon all things as good, goodness will be begotten from that decision.”
3. Forgiveness
In the New Testament, Jesus was asked by the Apostle Peter, “How long should I forgive?” Jesus replied, “Seventy times seven.” In A Course in Miracles, Jesus expands upon this teaching. He says that forgiveness is the way to peace; there will be no peace unless you have forgiveness. Forgiveness and Peace are central themes in A Course in Miracles.
“Forgiveness takes away what stands between your brother and yourself.”
“The holiest of all spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.”
In the “Way of Mastery”, Jesus significantly expands in great depth on his teaching in the earlier two books. We don’t question it anymore. We don’t say, “What’s he saying?”
In addition to building on forgiving “seventy times seven-times,” he includes the scientific reasoning behind the principle of forgiveness and what it does to our bodies. He makes it very clear that forgiveness is the key for us to release the guilt that results from judgement. Also, he provides practical step-by-step exercises for the reader to use in everyday life, to bring forgiveness into every level of their relationships and their lives.
“To forgive means to choose to release another from the perceptions you have been projecting upon them. It is, therefore, an act of forgiving one's self of one's projections. As you begin to forgive, even seventy-times-seven timeseach time you forgive, you take yourself deeper into the purity of your own consciousness. You begin to see how profoundly you have been coloring and, therefore, affecting all of your relationships, through the simple act of not being aware of the power of projection.
“Therefore, I learned, and learned well, that forgiveness is an essential key to healing. The opposite of forgiveness is judgment, and judgment always creates separation and guilt. Judgment will evoke a sense of guilt in the one that has been judged, unless they are perfectly awake.
“But more than this, each time that you judge anything or anyone, you have literally elicited guilt within yourself. Because there is a place within you, yet still, that knows the perfect purity of your brother and sister, and sees quite clearly that all things within the human realm are either the extension of love, or a cry for help and healing.”
“If you forgive seventy times seven, then in each of those moments of forgiveness, you call into your field of energy that which reminds you of unconditional love, perfect peace, a power that transcends anything that arises in the world. You call to yourself the reality of Christ.”
4. The Kingdom of God is Within You
In the New Testament, Luke 17:21, says: “For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
A Course in Miracles expands this point by teaching that everything that is God is within each of us, given to us at creation. All the peace, joy, love, compassion, wisdom and patience that is God are within us all the time. We have those same qualities that we can draw on at any time.
In the “Way of Mastery” , Jesus expands on this by showing us how to connect with the God within, and to honor the God within us by honoring the God in each another. For in order to honor you, I must honor the God in menot the outer shell that I wear, but the real true Spirit or soul of me, which is part of God. Extensive exercises are provided to help us do this.
“The world of conflict, fear, guilt and unworthiness and the world of the kingdom lie side by side within your own mind. The eye of the needle that one must pass through is the re-cultivation of the innocence of a child. It is for this reason that I often taught: Become again as a little child to enter the kingdom.”
5. Seek First the Kingdom of God
In the New Testament, Matthew 6:33 Jesus says,
“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
In A Course in Miracles, Jesus speaks about seeking first the kingdom of God, and he says that we always must go within where the kingdom of God exists within us. There are those like unto God qualities of compassion, kindness, love, joy, peace when we go within to that kingdom. And he teaches to use those qualities to deal with our everyday lives, so that we do it from a sense of a greater kingdom or higher self, than the self that the ego would use, which then allows us to receive the highest in each moment.
Jesus says that we are always looking outside ourselves for those God-like qualities of peace, love and joy and. He says don’t look outside of yourself to give you what you already have within. The kingdom is here and now on earth once we recognize it. The illusion is that we have to seek those things outside ourselves.
In the “Way of Mastery”, Jesus says that when you seek first the kingdom of God, you are looking at a much bigger picture than the smaller picture that you see through the eyes of the ego. He asks us to go within, remember that we are creative as Spirit, that’s all we are, we are Spirit having a human experience, by choice. In "The Way of Mastery", he teaches us how to use the creative power of God within to create a life that reflects our deepest heartfelt desires.
“The only one that holds value is your relationship with God. For when that is in alignment, all of your creations, your choices for relationships and how you will be within them will flow effortlessly from that alignment. Therefore, seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you. Do not try to create a rose by starting with the petals, but nourish the roots, and the flower must blossom.”
6. The Kingdom of Heaven
In Matthew 16:19 of the New Testament, Jesus said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
In A Course in Miracles, Jesus urges us to recognize that the kingdom of heaven is within. He encourages us not to wait for heaven, but to bring forth peace within ourselves through our thinking now.
“Heaven is here. There is nowhere else. Heaven is now. There is no other time.”
“Heaven is a decision I must make.”
“You can reach out your hand and reach to Heaven.”
In the “Way of Mastery” , Jesus provides in great detail the actual keys to the kingdom of heaven mentioned in the Gospel.
“Beloved and holy friends, I come not to bring peace to the world, but to shake it up so that those beings that make up the world can discover where true peace is truly hidden within themselves. And where Heaven abides within themselves. And where Christ lives within themselves.”
“All of these things rest on the practice of ‘seeking first the kingdom,’ which means not to believe in me, not to have some theological notion about what God is, not to adhere to a certain religion, or a certain church doctrine. The kingdom of Heaven is within you. It is the very power of choice."
The “Way of Mastery” expands on this by saying that with every thought we think, we are at choice. Do I choose love? Or do I choose fear? When I choose love, I am choosing God. When I choose fear, I am choosing to stand outside the kingdom. I am at choice in those thoughts. I am at choice whether I choose to live in the kingdom of God and to live in that sense of unconditional love right here, right now, right where I am. In Part I of "The Way of Mastery", The Way of the Heart and in Part II, The Way of Transformation, Jesus shows us how we are at choice to experience the kingdom.
“I am alone in my journey to God, for I abide alone in God. That is, I am an individuated spark of Divinity. It is within me. The kingdom of Heaven is within me. What I am seeking is within me. What fulfills me must come forth from within.”
“For I say unto you, what you will discover at the end of this pathway is perfect freedom, perfect power, perfect spaciousness, perfect joy and perfect peace of living literally in the kingdom of Heaven.”
“Rest assured, when the journey to the kingdom is completed, the journey within it begins anew. The bliss, the wisdom, the creativity , the laughter, the friendships, the family, the joy, the serenity, and the peace that have been, for the most part, seen as an impossible dream will become your most ordinary state of being. Yet, none of it can occur through any power that can move through me.
“I can guide you. I can show you the way. And I can walk beside you on the way that you have chosen. At times, I can give you my strength until yours is as certain as mine, by carrying you. But ultimately, you must demand that I put you down so that your feet touch the soil of the kingdom of Heaven, and you walk, under your strength, under your certainty, beside me.”
“So many of you upon the physical plane keep searching for some form of magic that will bring the kingdom of Heaven to you. You cannot bring it to you. You can only become aware of how you are using it to create the ripples that you send out from yourself."
" Do you know the saying in your world, “Wherever you go, there you are”? You are God’s creation. You are in Heaven now. Heaven is not a place. It is a state of unlimited and infinite creative power because it is the reflection of God’s holy mind.”
“If you would hear only loving thoughts, simply observe where your attention is. And allow it to settle deeply into this place, beyond time, beyond the body, beyond the dream of the world. For this place the kingdom of Heaven within you is vast beyond comprehension. The world you know when you take your attention to the surface of the mind is contained and embraced within this heart, like a dewdrop begins to be consumed by the ocean that receives it.
"Here, beloved friends, is the place of all certainty. Here is the place of perfect power to fulfill the loving thoughts with which your Creator has caressed you. Here is the way to fulfill each loving vision. Here is the source of all wisdom upon which you can draw to recreate yourself to be the presence of Christ incarnate. "
7. Turn the Other Cheek
In the New Testament, Matthew 5:39, Jesus said,
“... whoever slaps you on your right check, turn the other to him also.”
In A Course in Miracles, Jesus expands on that beautifully when he speaks about how in our relationships we must see beyond our perceptions, we must look anew. Don’t look from the point of view of your old past patterns of thought, look anew. If you looked out the window, you are going to see one viewpoint, if you look over across the room at a wall, you are going to see something different. So we need to turn the other cheek to be able to see differently. He wasn’t saying that you were to be hit again! But that we need to look at this from another point of view.
In the “Way of Mastery” , Jesus expands on seeing anew even more. He talks about when we see with the eye of anger and we say, “Well you know this is justified” and then he gives us all the steps that we go through to justify our anger and our disappointment. But he says that it is never justified. We must instead see everything with the eyes of Christ. Tools are provided to allow us to release past patterns of limitation and expand our perception so that we can see with the eyes of Christ and always extend love.
“When I walked upon your Earth as a man, I began to realize that the greatest gift that I could ever receive would only come to me as I chose to surrender every perception that I might conjure up about you , my brother or sister, that would veil the truth that is true about you always.
“When I was nine years of age, I began to awaken to exactly what I am describing to you. As my father would take me to sit with the elders and as he would read from the Torah to me, I began to be compelled by something within. Something began to speak to me, that underneath all of the perceptions that I could create of another, there was something radiant and shimmering waiting to be discovered.
“Something began to compel me. How might I discover how to see only that shimmering radiance? Would it be possible for me to see my brothers and sisters as God sees His children? I discovered that the way to see with the eyes of Christ begins with the acceptance that I, as a creator, created in the image of God, literally choose every experience and call it to me, that I create the veils through which I view creation.
“ . . . I discovered that if I looked upon my perceptions, my feelings , my behavior exactly as they were without overshadowing them with my own interpretations, if I could teach myself to embrace things with innocence, veils began to be dissolved from my mind.
“For when I was nine years old, I had already learned to be fearful of thinking, speaking or acting in a way that was not in conformity to the prevailing wisdom of that time, even within the Essene community, which had become rather rigidified. There was already much dogma. And dogma always leads to bickering.
“I began to discover that if I looked with innocence upon all things, a light began to shine through the things I was looking at. And as I rested more and more in this innocence, more and more the light would shine.”
“The goal, then, of genuine spirituality is to realign the quality of your perception, to mirror, to resonate with, to be in perfect alignment with, the perception of your Creator, to see with God's eyes.”
8. Not my will, but Thy will be done
In the New Testament, Jesus talks about surrendering to God’s will:
“Not my will, but Thy will be done.” and “Not my will, but My Father’s will be done.”
In A Course in Miracles, Jesus again teaches surrender.
“Where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?”
In the “Way of Mastery” , Jesus takes the teaching of surrender to a deeper level. He expands on what he taught in the New Testament explaining that surrender is not a loss.You are not losing anything, you are actually accepting your divine inheritance. It becomes a fulfillment of what he said in the New Testament, “Not I, but the Father through me does all things.” It makes clear that it is the power of the Father within that does the works. He shows you how to merge with the Father within so that power can move through you and create as you.
“Of myself, I do nothing. But through me, God does all things. To rest in such a perception means that you have come to realize that the self that you are is merely a conduit, through which mystery lives itself, through which love pours forth.”
“The Way of the Heart corrects your perception so that you come to recognize that your greatest joy, your greatest fulfillment is in wholly and deliberately accepting responsibility for the whole of creation. Why? Because you suddenly realize you are not the maker and doer, that you can accept responsibility for anything and everything because through you all power under Heaven and Earth is made to flow, to manifest the love of God. So, in short, it is in God's hands, not yours: Not my will, but thine be done.
“Does that begin to make sense to you? Do you see how it changes how you have even been taught to interpret my teachings?”
9. I and My Father are One
John 10:30 of the Gospels says: “I and My Father are one.”
A Course in Miracles says:
“You are in God.”
The “Way of Mastery” says:
“ ‘I and my Father are one!’ is one expression of mastery.”
And the “Way of Mastery” shows how to create this oneness and mastery.
10. Even greater works ye shall do
In John 14:12 of the New Testament Jesus says:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”
In A Course in Miracles Jesus says we do those greater works by extending love to everybody that we meet, thereby bringing heaven to earth.
“The end of the world is not its destruction, but its translation into Heaven.”
Then in the “Way of Mastery” , Jesus tells us more about how we can do those greater works and how we can participate in the transfiguration of humanity. That we can extend love when we are in the lines at the grocery store, we can do that in the lines at the post office, we can do that when we are sitting in our car in traffic. Collectively there are so many more of us today who can extend love through all the modern means that are available to us. And every time we are extending love, we are building and expanding the kingdom of God on earth.
“If I, who uttered those words so long ago, can demonstrate to anyone who will look that consciousness transcends the limited beliefs about the body, life and death that the world seems so determined to defend at all costs, if I can demonstrate that only love is real, if I can demonstrate the power to communicate with minds across creation, if I can bring forth creations by joining with other minds who may temporarily think they are just a body, such that written words fall upon a page and the page becomes part of a book that you are now reading, such that your heart is touched at just the right time, if I can do these things, so too can you. And indeed, greater things than these shall you do!
“Beloved friends, is it not time to assume complete responsibility for the grand freedom that has been imparted to you by God, Creator, Source of your being? Is it not time to begin spending time disengaging from your entangled view that holds you to believe that what you feel and what you think is the effect of all of the energies and things that are coming at you, from around you? Is it not time to begin to use time to decide which pebbles you will drop into the field of your awareness consistently, day by day, hour by hour, and even breath by breath?
“For these things create your tomorrows, and you cannot ever escape the reality that you are, and always will be, in the process of creating your tomorrows. Death will never separate you from it. Denial does not change it.
“You are free to decide what your tomorrows will be through the act of seeking first the kingdom. This means to rest into that inner silence in which you know that you are a wave having arisen with perfect momentum out of the depth of the ocean of God’s holy mind. And that what you carry with you is the result of the thoughts and the beliefs and the perceptions, like pebbles that you have dropped into the wave of your awareness.”
"The Father's Will for you is perfect Happiness", and
"Your salvation rests entirely on your willingness to train the mind to think loving thoughts."
“For the end of the world is not the end of creation, but its fulfillment.
“The kingdom shall be known upon the Earth. It will come to pass while yet you live in this life. And this is the kingdom: that the Father-Mother and the child are one union with God, peace, and the direct knowing that one lacks nothing.”
“Recognize that you have come, not to live ordinary lives, but to play out the greatest drama ever enacted upon the human plane. That is your role, your function, your purpose, and your life.
“For the end can come only when perfect equality as Christ is established in all hearts and minds. Join with me, then, in this great work. Join with me do not shy away from that which your heart would call you unto. Rather, dive deeper!
“I will never leave you, and will never take my hand from this work until all is, indeed, completed.
“You are as I am. And together we transfigure humanity. I was a prototype for what is to come, an expression in space and time of what all of you are destined to be. Yet, that destiny is but the remembrance of what you have always been beyond the veil of illusions.
“Hear the call. Accept the invitation. And let us continue in the greatest story ever told!”
In closing, after reading and studying the “Way of Mastery” , I am finding Jesus’ teachings so easy to live. It is teaching me to remember who I am who God created me to be. And to live the line in A Course in Miracles that he expands on in the “Way of Mastery” :
“I am not this body, I am Spirit, free, as God created me to be.”
In the “Way of Mastery” the terminology of the day is used in a very forthright manner that they all understand. In A Course in Miracles with the beautiful classical prose, if you are not very clear, you miss a lot of the message. You don’t miss the message in the “Way of Mastery”.
Rev. Kay Hunter,
Senior Minister
Cathedral of Light
Carrollton, Texas