Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Accepting God’s World as Our Own

Father, unless I judge I cannot weep. Nor can I suffer pain, or feel I am abandoned or unneeded in the world. This is my home because I judge it not, and therefore is it only what You will. Let me today behold it uncondemned, through happy eyes forgiveness has released from all distortion. Let me see Your world instead of mine. And all the tears I shed will be forgotten, for their source is gone. Father, I will not judge Your world today.

God’s world is happy. Those who look on it can only add their joy to it, and bless it as a cause of further joy in them. We wept because we did not understand. But we have learned the world we saw was false, and we will look upon God’s world today.

Father, our eyes are opening at last. Your holy world awaits us, as our sight is finally restored and we can see. We thought we suffered. But we had forgot the Son whom You created. Now we see that darkness is our own imagining, and light is there for us to look upon. Christ’s vision changes darkness into light, for fear must disappear when love has come. Let me forgive Your holy world today, that I may look upon its holiness and understand it but reflects my own. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 301,W-pII.301.1-2 302.1. See also ACIM Lesson 301 Insights.)

God’s world cannot be seen with the body’s eyes. It is seen through Christ’s vision, which is the vision of Love. Christ’s vision in our mind sees the innocence of Love’s oneness. Our eyes open to seeing God’s world as we accept Christ’s vision in place of what the body sees.

The ego’s world of separation depends upon judgment in all its perceptions. This is why forgiveness is needed to receive Christ’s vision, which will reveal God’s gifts of joy and peace. By letting Christ’s vision in our mind look past the images of the world, we see the real world, the world forgiveness sees. With this vision, we extend God’s Love in place of the ego’s denial of Love. With Christ’s vision, there is no cause for sadness, guilt or fear. We see only Love’s reflection everywhere.

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Attaining the State of Peace

Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and the keeping of the state of peace. Given this state the mind is quiet, and the condition in which God is remembered is attained. It is not necessary to tell Him what to do. He will not fail. Where He can enter, there He is already. And can it be He cannot enter where He wills to be? Peace will be yours because it is His Will. Can you believe a shadow can hold back the Will that holds the universe secure? God does not wait upon illusions to let Him be Himself. No more His Son. They are. And what illusion that idly seems to drift between Them has the power to defeat what is [the Father’s and Son’s] Will?

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one [value] can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. Every [belief] has the power to dictate each decision you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. [A decision] is the outcome of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering follow guilt and freedom sinlessness. There is no substitute for peace. What God creates has no alternative. The truth arises from what He knows. And your decisions come from your beliefs as certainly as all creation rose in His Mind because of what He knows. (A Course in Miracles,T-24.in.1-2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

All our guilt, fear, any lack of peace, comes from our belief that there is an alternative to God’s peace. The core of this belief is the wish to usurp our Creator and make our own universe, separate and distinct from the universe of Love’s oneness.

Only Love is real. Thus only in illusion does it seem to be possible to make a separate universe. This separate universe seems real only because of our belief in it. Beliefs can change. The reality of oneness cannot. The value we give everything in the dream of separation comes from our belief. This is why we must learn to question the value of everything we perceive in the world.

The Course provides a curriculum to teach us what is valuable and what is valueless. Illusions are valueless, but we must learn to recognize illusions for what they are. The curriculum is a guide for this learning. The benefit of learning this is peace. It is learning that we are perfectly safe, always. We remember that we are loved and loving. There is nothing else.

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Trusting the Truth in Our Brother

We seek for innocence and nothing else. We seek for it with no concern but now.

We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now.

if a brother’s sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight, and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our “sins.” So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise we will transcend them with instructions to our minds to change their focus, as we say:

It is not this that I would look upon.
I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

As our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 181,W-pI.181.3:5-6;5:6;6:2-5;8:3-6. See also ACIM Lesson 181 Insights.)

The appearance of a body that we have given a name is not our brother. It is an ego-made image of separation made to hide the truth in our brother. This illusion cannot be trusted because its function is to justify fear and guilt. Yet illusions can never justify sin because an illusion is nothing and can have no effect.

When we say, “I trust my brother who is one with me,” we are focusing our attention on the one Self that we share with every brother. This Self is Love and nothing else. We are being asked to trust that only Love is real and only the Love in our brother and ourselves can be trusted.

Eternal, changeless Love deserves absolute trust. There is nothing else to trust. This is a complete reversal of what the world teaches because the world teaches the ego’s thought system that denies the reality of Love. It uses the illusion of a past to overlook the present and make up scenarios for the future that repeat the past. This is how the ego maintains its appearance of reality. But Reality cannot be based on illusions.

The practice of focusing on and trusting in the truth of our brother is a powerful tool for reversing our mistaken beliefs and returning to the acceptance that we are Love and nothing else.

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How to Find Peace and Happiness

In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved. In conflict [separation] there can be no answer and no resolution, for its purpose is to make no resolution possible, and to ensure no answer will be plain. A problem set in conflict has no answer, for it is seen in different ways. And what would be an answer from one point of view is not an answer in another light. You are in conflict. Thus it must be clear you cannot answer anything at all, for conflict has no limited effects. Yet if God gave an answer there must be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done.

Thus it must be that time is not involved and every problem can be answered now. Yet it must also be that, in your state of mind [believing in separation], solution is impossible. Therefore, God must have given you a way of reaching to another state of mind in which the answer is already there. Such is the holy instant. It is here that all your problems should be brought and left. Here they belong, for here their answer is. And where its answer is, a problem must be simple and be easily resolved. It must be pointless to attempt to solve a problem where the answer cannot be. Yet just as surely it must be resolved, if it is brought to where the answer is.

Attempt to solve no problems but within the holy instant’s surety. For there the problem will be answered and resolved. (A Course in Miracles, T-27.IV.1:1-3:2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

If we want to find peace and happiness, we must give up thinking we can find answers on our own. Believing we are separate and on our own is the core of every problem. We cannot ask the source of a problem for the answer to the problem and receive resolution. We must look beyond the problem, the state of mind that harbors problems.

In this world conflict seems very real. We need to practice stepping back and going to the quiet place in our mind. This quiet place is ever present because it is the Mind of our true Self. But we must redirect our focus from the mind of conflict to the quiet mind, where true resolution can be found.

When a problem looms large and seems threatening, it takes vigilance to step back from the conflict and let peace return to our mind. It may take extra effort to reach that quiet place as conflicting thoughts stream through our mind. We need to set those thoughts aside and focus again on the peace within. As we let that peace grow strong in our awareness, the helpful answer that brings resolution is welcomed.

The more this process is practiced, the easier it becomes to let our problems be resolved. Sometimes a simple mental process of pausing and asking for inspiration is all we need to see the path to resolution. Other issues may seem more difficult but only need more vigilance to return to the peace in our minds. In that place of peace the resolution comes just as easily for every conflict or issue. Let us join together in willingness to go to the quiet place within to let all problems be resolved.

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Awakening from the Dream of Fear

God is the Alternate to dreams of fear. Who shares in [dreams of fear] can never share in Him. But who withdraws his mind from sharing [fear] is sharing Him. There is no other choice. Except you share it, nothing can exist. And you exist because God shared His Will with you, that His creation might create.

It is the sharing of the evil dreams of hate and malice, bitterness and death, of sin and suffering and pain and loss, that makes them real. Unshared, they are perceived as meaningless. The fear is gone from them because you did not give them your support. Where fear has gone there love must come, because there are but these alternatives. Where one appears, the other disappears. And which you share becomes the only one you have. You have the one that you accept, because it is the only one you wish to have.

You share no evil dreams if you forgive the dreamer, and perceive that he is not the dream he made. And so he cannot be a part of yours, from which you both are free. Forgiveness separates the dreamer from the evil dream, and thus releases him. (A Course in Miracles,T-28.V.1:6-3:3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)


Dreaming is a choice. It is the wish to experience a different “reality” than our waking state. When we choose to dream, we have chosen against our true Reality. And thus we seem to have a different identity.

When we perceive a brother in this dream, we see a dream identity that is not real. If we see him in our dream, we are sharing a dream and this sharing makes the dream seem real. To waken from this dream, we must learn and accept that the dreamer of the dream is not the identity we perceive in the dream. Thus the appearance of a brother who upsets us is not his true Identity.

Recognizing the distinction between the dreamer and the dream helps us release our mistaken perception of his identity. This release applies to both our brother and ourselves. We can disconnect from the dream and recognize our brother as one with us in the Self that God created as His Son. A dream can be forgiven because it is not real. It has no effect on the dreamer. As we let go of the dream through forgiveness, we awaken to the Reality of our oneness in Love.

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Returning to the Serenity of God

We attempt, [today], to reach a quickened pace along a shorter path to the serenity and peace of God. We merely close our eyes, and then forget all that we thought we knew and understood. For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand.

Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged. If you notice one, deny its hold and hasten to assure your mind that this is not what it would have. Then gently let the thought which you denied be given up, in sure and quick exchange for the idea we practice for the day.

“\When you are tempted, hasten to proclaim your freedom from temptation, as you say:

This thought I do not want. I choose instead _____.

And then repeat the idea for the day,

I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.

…we give these times of quiet to the Teacher Who instructs in quiet, speaks of peace, and gives our thoughts whatever meaning they may have.

…let Him teach you what to do and say and think, each time you turn to Him. He will not fail to be available to you, each time you call to Him to help you. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Review VI,W-pI.rVI.4:2-4;5:2-4;6:1-4,6;7:2-3. See also ACIM Review VI Insights.)

Unforgiveness is the wish to hang on to the past and use it as our basis for understanding our perceptions. But memories of the past are not real. Thus it is the past we need to let go. As we let the past go it becomes more and more clear that of our self we do not understand anything.

We need to turn to our Teacher within to receive His understanding. The fear and guilt we brought from the past will be replaced by the Holy Spirit’s gift which shows us only Love is real. Therefore only Love is understandable.

When we release the past, we are free to accept the Holy Spirit’s guidance for what to say and do. With this practice, all our doing in the world becomes a means for letting go of barriers to Love and joining with the Love that is everywhere, in every brother and ourselves. This is how to return to the serenity of God’s Love.

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Bringing Love’s Light to Dispel the Ego’s Darkness

Who is the light of the world except God’s Son? [“I am the light of the world”], then, is merely a statement of the truth about yourself. It is the opposite of a statement of pride, of arrogance, or of self-deception. It does not describe the self-concept you have made. It does not refer to any of the characteristics with which you have endowed your idols. It refers to you as you were created by God. It simply states the truth.

You will want to think about this idea as often as possible today. It is the perfect answer to all illusions, and therefore to all temptation. It brings all the images you have made about yourself to the truth, and helps you depart in peace, unburdened and certain of your purpose.

As many practice periods as possible should be undertaken today, although each one need not exceed a minute or two. They should begin with telling yourself:

I am the light of the world. That is my only function.
That is why I am here.

Today’s idea goes far beyond the ego’s petty views of what you are and what your purpose is. …You are the light of the world. God has built His plan for the salvation of His Son on you. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 61, W-pI.61.1;4:1-5:5;7:1,5-6. See also ACIM Lesson 61 Insights.)

Light shines away darkness, which is the absence of light. Darkness only occurs when there is a barrier against the light. In this world, light can be used as a metaphor for Love. The darkness of the world of separation, which denies Love, makes the presence of Love unrecognized.

We bring Light to the world when we bring Love to replace our thoughts of fear, the absence of Love. Just as light dissipates darkness, Love dispels fear. As Light and darkness cannot coexist, Love and fear cannot coexist.

Our function is to bring Love into the ego thought system of fear and guilt. We do this by bringing all of our fearful and guilty thoughts to the Holy Spirit in our mind. He offers His vision of Love (Light) in their place. His vision recognizes our fearful thoughts as illusions, removing the ego-made barriers to Love and revealing the truth of Love’s eternal Reality. This practice is how we fulfill our part in God’s plan for the salvation of His Son.

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