Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Healing Our Mistaken Beliefs

No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself.

The lilies [of forgiveness] that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. …The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift [of Love] forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.

Now are we one in [the Thought of Love], for fear has gone. And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought, we stand together as one Son of God. Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness, and give as we receive. The Name of God is on our lips. And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father’s Love.

Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. [The Love] we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it every­where. We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 187, W-pI.187.8:6;9:1,5;10:1-11:5. See also ACIM Lesson 187 Insights.)

The world we see is a place of sacrifice and loss. To have the illusion of specialness we must sacrifice the Reality of Love’s oneness. We lose awareness of Love’s innocence and oneness. Yet Love remains our Reality, unchanged by our denial of It.

Only the mistaken belief in separation makes us unaware of the eternal Love in our mind that maintains our unity with our Creator. Beliefs can be changed. They are easily dismissed when they are recognized as mistaken.

We have been given the Holy Spirit to guide us to the Truth that heals our false beliefs. By choosing His perception of Love instead of the ego’s perception of separation, we forgive. We let go of mistaken beliefs and overlook the illusions they made to the Truth of our wholeness in the Heart of God.

Today we practice holding our mind open to the Holy Spirit’s vision to heal our mistaken perceptions.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Undoing the Ego’s Wall of Beliefs

The mind that sees illusions thinks them real. They have existence in that they are thoughts. And yet they are not real, because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God.

The Holy Spirit holds [God’s plan] exactly as it was re­ceived of Him within the Mind of God and in your own [separate mind]. It is apart from time in that its Source is timeless. Yet [His plan] operates in time, because of your belief that time is real. Unshaken does the Holy Spirit look on what you see; on sin and pain and death, on grief and separation and on loss. Yet does He know one thing must still be true; God is still Love, and this is not His Will.

This is the Thought that brings illusions to the truth, and sees them as appearances behind which is the changeless and the sure. This is the Thought that saves and that forgives, because it lays no faith in what is not created by the only Source it knows. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 99, W-pI.99.3:2-3;5:1-6:2. See also ACIM Lesson 99 Insights.)

To maintain its seeming existence, the ego has built a wall around a separate mind that defends against the Reality of Love’s oneness. This wall is built with beliefs. These beliefs have no foundation in truth and so the ego carefully protects them by limiting our perception to only what confirms and reinforces our beliefs. It is these false perceptions that must be overlooked so that we may see the Reality of eternal Love that God gave us when He created His one Son.

The Holy Spirit’s function is to help us undo the wall. He recognizes that we believe our wall is real, but He knows it is an illusion with no substance, held in place by false beliefs. The Holy Spirit’s function is to teach us these beliefs are not true. As we learn His loving lessons, we freely dismiss the illusions and welcome the truth of God’s gift of Love. We undo the wall by letting the Holy Spirit help us forgive our mistaken beliefs and accept Love’s reality.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting God’s Gift of Holiness

My holiness shines bright and clear today.

Today I wake with joy, expecting but the happy things of God to come to me. I ask but them to come, and realize my invitation will be answered by the thoughts [of God] to which [my invitation] has been sent by me. And I will ask for only joyous things the instant I accept my holiness. For what would be the use of pain to me, what purpose would my suffering fulfill, and how would grief and loss avail me if insanity departs from me today, and I accept my holiness instead?

Father, my holiness is Yours. Let me rejoice in it, and through for­giveness be restored to sanity. Your Son is still as You created him. My holiness is part of me, and also part of You. And what can alter Holi­ness Itself? (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 285, W-pII.285. See also ACIM Lesson 285 Insights.)

It is impossible to know our holiness while we believe we are a body with an identity separate and alone. This belief is insane because it is believing an illusion is real. Insanity is healed when we cease to believe in illusions.

This lesson is encouraging us to accept the reality of our unbreakable unity with the oneness of God’s Love. This means we accept no limitation, no separation. We accept God’s holiness as ours when we accept our unity with Him. We accept our Identity as unlimited Love. And we accept perfect happiness, an attribute of Love.

To accept our true Identity, we must forgive our wish to be a separate identity. In every moment we choose between a false identity of littleness and lack and our true Identity, which shares God’s magnitude, joy and limitless Love.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit’s help to let go of our belief in a false identity and open our awareness to our true Identity. Thus we will let our holiness shine bright and clear today.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiveness Reveals God’s Gift of Love

Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined.

Forgiveness is the means appointed for perception’s ending. Knowledge is restored after perception first is changed, and then gives way entirely to what remains forever past its highest reach. For sights and sounds, at best, can serve but to recall the memory that lies beyond them all. Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth. Its lilies shine into the mind, and call it to return and look within, to find what it has vainly sought without. For here, and only here, is peace of mind restored, for this the dwelling place of God Himself.

In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. Then let me, Father, look within, and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 336, W-pII.336. See also ACIM Lesson 336 Insights.)

The ego uses perception as a means to make the illusion of separation seem real. This is an important tool in the ego’s bag of tricks to keep our allegiance to its denial of Love’s oneness. Perception makes it appear that we can perceive others as guilty without retaining guilt in ourselves. But this is just a disguise for the ego’s goal to make guilt real and permanent.

The Holy Spirit has another use for perception. Forgiveness, under the Holy Spirit’s direction, shows us a perception beyond the ego’s forms to the innocence of the face of Christ. Christ is in every brother. It is the symbol of our unbreakable unity with God. It is this perception that looks past guilt to the Love that is the truth.

We open to the Holy Spirit’s perception by looking within our mind with willingness to set aside or step back from what we have believed about our world. We step back by pausing to welcome the Presence of Peace in our mind. Peace is our natural state. It is the condition in which our true Self, the Holy Spirit, resides. From this state of peace we understand that only Love is real. We forgive the ego’s barriers to Love. Our heart overflows with God’s Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Taking the Path of Return to Love

I am affected only by my thoughts.

It needs but this to let salvation come to all the world. For in this single thought is everyone released at last from fear. Now has he learned that no one frightens him, and nothing can endanger him. He has no enemies, and he is safe from all external things. His thoughts can frighten him, but since these thoughts belong to him alone, he has the power to change them and exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love. He crucified himself. Yet God has planned that His beloved Son will be redeemed.

Your plan is sure, my Father,—only Yours. All other plans will fail. And I will have thoughts that will frighten me, until I learn that You have given me the only Thought that leads me to salvation. Mine alone will fail, and lead me nowhere. But the Thought You gave me promises to lead me home, because it holds Your promise to Your Son.” (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 339, W-pII.339. See also ACIM Lesson 339 Insights.)

Forgiveness is the Thought that leads to our salvation, to freedom from fear and guilt, and to the remembrance of the changeless Love we were created to be. In reality, nothing but Love exists. Fear and guilt come only from belief in being separate from Love. We chose to accept this belief and we can choose once again to let it go.

Our long established habit of thinking thoughts of fear and guilt keeps us bound to the ego thought system. Today we can take a step to free ourselves from this bondage. With each fearful or guilty thought we practice reminding ourselves:

I have the power to exchange this thought for a happy thought of Love.

This is how we forgive ourselves and our brothers for the mistaken belief that it’s possible to lose our eternal connection with our Creator. This practice sets us on the path of return to Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Path Leading Us Back to Love

I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.

Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother’s sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.

What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my brother’s sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well. (W-pII.335)

The body is an instrument for perception. Everything it sees, hears or feels is limited to the dream of separation. Perception cannot reach beyond the world of form. Forgiveness is the means to bring our perceptions to the point that perception is no longer needed or wanted. Forgiveness recognizes the world as having no meaning of its own and lets go of the meaning we have given it through our belief in separation. Forgiveness releases us from the dream of fear and guilt.

Each time we accept the Holy Spirit’s help to see past appearances in the world to the presence of Love’s innocence, we move closer to the end of fear. We take another step in the undoing of the dream and the acceptance of the unity of Love that joins us with our brothers and our Creator.

Today we practice asking for the Holy Spirit’s help to see all things as He sees them. We choose the path that leads us to the remembrance that we remain within the Thought of Love Which created us.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiveness Awakens the Memory of God

It is our function to remember [God] on earth, as it is given us to be His Own completion in reality. So let us not forget our goal is shared, for it is that remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and to the Heaven of His peace. And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer [the Heaven of God’s peace] to us? [Our brother] is the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us. In him resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him.

We will not end this year without the gift our Father promised to His holy Son. We are forgiven now. And we are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to God, and found it was a dream. We are restored to sanity, in which we understand that anger is insane, attack is mad, and vengeance merely foolish fantasy. We have been saved from wrath because we learned we were mistaken. Nothing more than that. And is a father angry at his son because he failed to understand the truth?

We come in honesty to God and say we did not understand, and ask Him to help us to learn His lessons, through the Voice of His Own Teacher. (A Course in Miracles Final Lessons, W-pII.Final Lessons Intro.4:1-6:1. See also ACIM Lesson 361 Insights.)

We are forgiven now because God has never judged against us. He knows us as His Son, an extension of Himself. It is we who must forgive the image we have made of ourselves as separate individuals. What we perceive about our brothers is a projection of what we believe we are. We perceive him as a body because we believe we are a body.

All the attributes we assign to our brother as a body are attributes we have accepted as our own. We believe bodies can harm and be harmed. We believe bodies can die because we believe we can die. These beliefs are constructs of the ego thought system of separation. They seem true only because we believe them. We forgive these illusions by withdrawing our belief in them.

To do this we need the Holy Spirit’s help. The Holy Spirit sees what we see but does not believe them. He uses the images and symbols we have made to teach us what we believe is not true. As we accept His lessons, we forgive the illusions and the memory of God returns to our holy mind.

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