Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Release from Fear and Return to Love

Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. It is this:

You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real [to you] and inescapable. Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.

If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made is real. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 170, W-pI.170.2:4-7;4. See also ACIM Lesson 170 Insights.)

To satisfy the wish to be special we had to make up a world of differences. There is no specialness in the oneness that is all the same everywhere. This made up world now has something different that can conflict with the special identity we have claimed as our own. We now perceive ourselves in a world of conflict which we must defend against. This is the dream we made which excludes the oneness of Love and all its strength, peace and happiness.

This world could only seem to exist in a part of our mind that denies Reality and chooses to believe in differences that could never be real. Identifying with an unreal image of ourselves, we miss the peace, safety and happiness that we experience as our true Self. We long to return to that Heavenly state.

But as long as we identify with a separate-self image, we cannot find the Love we long for. Instead we are imprisoned by a belief in being limited to a special identity that lacks Love’s strength, leaving us feeling weak, fearful and needing to protect our imagined special domain. With this belief, escape seems impossible.

Yet release from fear can come in an instant by letting go of this belief in what could never be true. The means to release this belief is true forgiveness. We need only reach out beyond our self-imposed limitation to the Holy Spirit in our mind Who will teach us how to forgive and return to Heaven.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Freeing Our Mind from Guilt

Earlier, I said that the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wants only this, for sharing the Father’s Love for His Son, He seeks to remove all guilt from his mind that he may remember his Father in peace. Peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can be remembered only in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to deny the other. Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God’s Son.

In the strange world that you have made the Son of God has sinned. How could you see him, then? By making him invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt that you accepted, and you hold it dear. For the blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was, and could never be. Without guilt the ego has no life, and God’s Son is without guilt.

The Holy Spirit stands at the end of time, where you must be because He is with you. He has already undone everything unworthy of the Son of God, for such was His mission, given Him by God. And what God gives has always been.

For the Son of God is guiltless now, and the brightness of His purity shines untouched forever in God’s Mind. God’s Son will always be as he was created. Deny your world and judge him not, for his eternal guiltlessness is in the Mind of his Father, and protects him forever. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.I.1-2;4:4-6;5:6-8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego depends on guilt for its seeming existence. Guilt keeps us bound to the past to which the ego always refers for justification of judgment. Without the past we have no basis for judgment.

The Holy Spirit teaches us to forgive the past which releases our mind to awareness of the eternal present. This release dispels the ego and welcomes our true Self, the Christ, the Son of God. When the Holy Spirit’s mission has been completed, we have freed our mind from the past and accepted our Self as God created It. We stand at the gate of Heaven, where God welcomes us Home.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Means to Remember Our True Self

Heaven asks nothing. It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice. You give up nothing in these times today when, undefended, you present yourself to your Creator as you really are.

He has remembered you. Today we will remember Him. For this is Eastertime in your salvation. And you rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness. Now is the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense, to learn the part for you within the plan of God. What little plans or magical beliefs can still have value, when you have received your function from the Voice for God Himself?

Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most. For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning. Learn today. And all the world will take this giant stride, and celebrate your Eastertime with you. Throughout the day, as foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans, remind yourself this is a special day for learning, and acknowledge it with this:

This is my Eastertime [resurrection to my Self]. And I would keep it holy. I will not defend myself, because the Son of God needs no defense against the truth of his reality. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 135, W-pI.135.24:3-26:8. See also ACIM Lesson 135 Insights.)

The key to lasting happiness is to put the Holy Spirit in charge of all plans on our behalf. When we try to plan on our own, we are putting the ego in charge. The ego does not know what will truly make us happy. The best it can do is offer temporary illusions that may seem good in the moment but soon fade away, leaving us searching once again to find Love and happiness.

We awaken to the holiness of our true Self when we let the Holy Spirit be our Guide, moment by moment. He brings us God’s gift of perfect happiness. That is His mission. The Holy Spirit remembers our true Self for us. Recognizing that we believe in an illusionary self, the Holy Spirit offers us a bridge that leads us out of the dream. He helps us see past the illusions to the eternal truth that we are Love and nothing else. And the attributes of Love are peace and happiness. We choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide today so that we may awaken to our true Self.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Spirit of Love We Are

I have a kingdom [my mind] I must rule. At times, it does not seem I am its king at all. It seems to triumph over me, and tell me what to think, and what to do and feel. And yet [my mind] has been given me to serve whatever purpose I perceive in it. My mind can only serve. Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit to employ as He sees fit. I thus direct my mind, which I alone can rule. And thus I set it free to do the Will of God.

Father, my mind is open to Your Thoughts, and closed today to every thought but Yours. I rule my mind, and offer it to You. Accept my gift, for it is Yours to me. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 236, W-pII.236. See also ACIM Lesson 236 Insights.)

While we align with the ego, our mind serves the ego’s purpose. It makes images of separation which seem to be real. Their purpose is to convince us that we are separate and alone in a loveless world. A mind aligned with the ego is imprisoned by belief that the oneness of Love is unreal.

But the mind can also serve the Holy Spirit’s purpose. Guided by the Holy Spirit, our mind seeks for and finds the presence of Love everywhere. The Holy Spirit’s guidance is the key that unlocks the ego’s prison door. It saves us from the ego’s damnation to the hell of separation and restores us to the eternal, changeless Love of God as our Home.

Today we choose to accept God’s gift of all of His Love. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we learn to see past the ego’s images of separation to the Spirit of Love that surrounds us and is us. We find God’s gift of perfect peace and we give thanks.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Claiming the Love We Are

I am surrounded by the Love of God. Father, You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go. You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own. In You time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief. For what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love itself. There is no source but this, and nothing is that does not share its holiness; that stands beyond Your one creation, or without the Love which holds all things within itself. Father, Your Son is like Yourself. We come to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.

My brothers, join with me in this today. This is salvation’s prayer. Must we not join in what will save the world, along with us? (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 264, W-pII.264. See also ACIM Lesson 264 Insights.)

The ego has attempted to make a world where Love cannot enter. Yet the Love of God still surrounds us and is in us. We cannot be without God’s Love because only Love is real. The changelessness and reality of God’s Love is our guarantee that no matter what we may dream, His Love is still with us. This is the basis for our release from the ego’s belief in littleness and limitation.

The practice of reminding ourselves that we are surrounded by the Love of God brings healing to the thoughts of fear and guilt that come with the ego thought system. The ego thought system is held together only by belief. It cannot change the truth of Love’s eternal presence, though belief can make us unaware of It.

Let us join today in the practice of remembering we are surrounded by God’s Love. We are innocent, safe and eternally loved by our Creator.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Remembering We Are Spirit

You see the flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite. There is no choice in vision but this one. What you decide in this determines all you see and think is real and hold as true. On this one choice does all your world depend, for here have you established what you are, as flesh or spirit in your own belief. If you choose flesh, you never will escape the body as your own reality, for you have chosen that you want it so. But choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes and bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal and comfort and to bless.

Salvation is undoing. If you choose to see the body, you behold a world of separation, unrelated things, and happenings that make no sense at all. This one appears and disappears in death; that one is doomed to suffering and loss. And no one is exactly as he was an instant previous, nor will he be the same as he is now an instant hence. Who could have trust where so much change is seen, for who is worthy if he be but dust? Salvation is undoing of all this. For constancy arises in the sight of those whose eyes salvation has released from looking at the cost of keeping guilt, because they chose to let it go instead.

Salvation does not ask that you behold the spirit and perceive the body not. It merely asks that this should be your choice. (A Course in Miracles, T-31.VI.1:1-3:2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Workbook lesson 97 is titled, “I am Spirit.” This lesson brings into focus the recognition of What we are in truth. Spirit is one and has no limits because it is one with God.

The world we see seems to show us that we are not Spirit. The image of a separate body has been substituted for the formless, unlimited Spirit that is our Self. The body’s eyes cannot see Spirit, for they were made to limit perception to what confirms the “reality” of separation. We are not asked to deny what the body’s eyes see. But we are asked to recognize the body does not see reality and choose instead to accept our true Identity as Spirit.

We free ourselves from identifying with a body through forgiveness. Only bodies can seem to harm or be harmed. The perception of harm justifies judgment and guilt. When we choose to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to reinterpret our perceptions, we learn that nothing has happened to change our true Identity. We forgive the misperception that blinded us from knowing that we remain whole, as God created us.

Today we practice remembering “I am Spirit.” This practice opens our mind to the Holy Spirit’s guidance that will free us to identify with the one Self that God created as His Son.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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We Are Forever Safe in God’s Love

God in His mercy wills that I be saved. I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, “God wills that I be saved from this,” and merely watch them disappear. I need but keep in mind my Father’s Will for me is only happiness, to find that only happiness has come to me. And I need but remember that God’s Love surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in His Arms. I am the Son He loves. And I am saved because God in His mercy wills it so.

Father, Your Holiness is mine. Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is none in You. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 235, W-pII.235. See also ACIM Lesson 235 Insights.)

We are forever safe in the loving arms of God. He has given us all His strength, which keeps us eternally one with Him. We share His invulnerability and His joy. He is our Home where nothing can intrude on His perfect peace.

God’s holy Teacher offers us lessons in Love which teach us to remember that we are God’s Son Whom He loves without reservation. We can count on the certainty and safety of His Love to support us in truth in every moment. We accept God’s gift of perfect happiness as we put the Holy Spirit in charge of all our thoughts. We let Him decide what everything means.

With this practice we learn to disregard the appearances of harm and loss and see the changelessness of the Life we live in God.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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