A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

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To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

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To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 335 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 335 Insights

“I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.”

Seeing my brother sinless is the same as seeing my brother without guilt and without blame. When I look at the world with the Holy Spirit, I see that every brother, no matter what insane dream he is dreaming, is still as God created him. He is still innocent, holy and eternally an extension of God’s Love.

Dreams are just mistaken ideas. They may look very complex and very diverse, but in truth one dream is the same as any other dream — they are all equally untrue. They never really happened. All dreams come from mistaken ideas that could never be true. Insanity is just insanity and is not a sin. And hate and vengeance are just reflections of insanity.

The whole world is just a reflection of insanity. Every single part of the dream of separation is equally untrue. That is why there is no order of difficulty in miracles. If it is Love, it is true. If it is anything else, it is untrue. The only thing to do is to let go of the untrue.

Love is one. Love is eternal. Love is sinless. Behind every story of separation lies the sinless Love that every brother truly is. Today, “I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.” Today I choose to remember the truth. Today I choose to remember our oneness in God.

Perception is a choice. Everything I see is a perception. Therefore, everything I see is a choice. It doesn’t seem that I choose to see pain, disease and death. But if I believe separation is real, that is exactly what I am choosing to see. Death is just one of many symbols of separation. Some of the ego’s symbols of separation are quite obvious. Certainly when we perceive that when someone has died we feel separated from that person. We can no longer see them or touch them or hear their voice.

But clothes, for example, can be equally a symbol of separation. Clothes are often used to represent status. We talk about blue collar and white collar workers. Thus we use clothes as a symbol of separation, a way to distinguish one from another. The list of forms in this world used to represent separation is endless. In fact if it is form, it must be representing separation. Form can only be recognized by what makes it different from its surroundings.

In the old Star Trek series when somebody was being transported out of the space ship, you would see the form gradually become less and less distinct until the transporting was complete and what was left was light. As we can learn to let the perception of the body soften and look beyond it to the holy Light of God that is the Son of God, we will be less and less influenced by what bodies and forms seem to do. More and more we will know the peace that comes from recognizing the changeless, eternal Love that is all that is real.

Forgiveness works like the transporter. As we let the Holy Spirit teach us to distinguish the real from the unreal and to help us let go of the unreal, bodies and what they do will have less and less meaning to us. More and more we see past the form to the sinless Love that is all there really is to see. More and more we will see that innocence and recognize our oneness with it. Our peace will become undisturbed because what is one with us brings no conflict. Today I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness so that I may remember the peace of God.

These types of lessons from the Course have always been the most challenging for me. It’s usually easy and I don’t have a problem seeing the sinlessness and innocence in the people whom I love, but I have a real hard time with people who I perceive have hurt me or who irritate me or aren’t living the way I think they should be.

But today if I can, just for a split second, keep from making judgment on people in the multitude of symbols or forms I see them as… black or white, blue collar or white collar, educated or uneducated, etc., etc.; I believe that in that split second, I meet with the Holy Spirit at the altar, even though I may still not recognize my brother as he truly is.

The Altar, right now, is unfamiliar to me and sometimes even makes me uncomfortable because of the fact that I feel I’m on alien ground, but by practicing these lessons, my world is beginning to turn right side up and seeing my brother as different from me is beginning to make me uncomfortable.

Today I am willing to make no judgment on my brother; I am willing to accept the idea that these situations with the people I have that I perceive as difficult are opportunities for me to ask for guidance and meet the Holy Spirit at the Altar.

Thank you. You expressed, very well, a lot of the stuff that I’m going through as I try to learn to see differently. Like you, I am trying to turn my world right side up by looking past the forms and meeting my brothers without judgment. It seems like it is too much for me to do by myself. Thank you God, that I don’t have to do it alone.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 334 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 334 Insights

“Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.”

Today my practice is to frequently ask myself, “Am I looking through the ego’s eyes or am I looking through the Holy Spirit’s eyes?” The ego’s eyes show me that separation is real. The ego’s eyes show me that bodies and separate personalities are real. The ego focuses on what bodies do and looks for fault and blame.

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, sees past bodies to the radiant Light that is truly there. The Holy Spirit looks at the eternal. The Holy Spirit sees that nothing has changed and that every brother is still totally sinless. The Holy Spirit blesses while the ego condemns.

Today my practice is to frequently check in to which hand I am holding, the ego’s or the Holy Spirit’s. The ego’s “gifts” offer sorrow and pain, while the Holy Spirit offers peace and joy.

Today I would behold my brother as sinless. Today I would strengthen my forgiveness muscles by practicing forgiveness all through the day. I would practice seeing past bodies to the truth in every brother and accept the gifts of peace and happiness. This is my practice today. “Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.”

It is helpful to remember that all the images I see in the world and their behavior, all events, are simply outward pictures representing my state of mind — my beliefs and thoughts. If I would claim the gifts forgiveness gives then I must learn to recognize the truth about what the images in my world represent. To learn this I must turn to the only Teacher who knows the difference between illusion and reality. That Teacher is the Holy Spirit in my mind.

At first the Holy Spirit may need to use external teaching aids such as the Course or other people who walk a few steps ahead along the path I seek to follow. But with practice I can learn to listen to the Holy Spirit in my mind and receive His guidance all through the day. He is ever present, always offering His gifts of the peace and joy of God. I claim them through my willingness to listen and follow.

When I get caught up in the activities of the world and think I know on my own what they mean, this simply reflects my resistance to following the Holy Spirit. Gratefully the Holy Spirit does not judge me for my resistance. With compassionate gentleness, He continues to offer me the gifts forgiveness brings. The moment I am ready to claim them, they are mine.

Today I would not settle for anxiety, sadness or any disturbance of my peace of mind. I would practice taking every thought that does not reflect the peace and Love of God to the Holy Spirit for His kind and gentle correction. I would practice listening and following, for thus do “I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.”

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 333 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 333 Insights

“Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.”

Jesus makes it very clear in this lesson that this world is a dream of conflict. He also makes it very clear that this dream of conflict cannot be resolved except through forgiveness. Conflict’s defenses hide the truth from our awareness. Conflict’s defenses make it look like the ego’s lies are the only truth.

Forgiveness paves the way by which the deceit of the ego’s false perceptions are revealed. Forgiveness provides an opening through which the Holy Spirit can reveal the truth. There is only one truth and in that one truth there can be no conflict. In Heaven, where we really reside, there is no conflict. Our will and God’s Will are one.

The ego is the opposite of God’s Will. The ego is the choice for separation from oneness. From the choice for separation came a world of conflict. This conflict is resolved through letting go of the mad illusions of separation.

The Holy Spirit will lead us out of these mad delusions as we open our minds and are willing to receive a correction in our perception. This is what the Course calls forgiveness. “Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.”

Sentence two in the lesson describes the many ways the ego attempts to deal with conflict. All of them are methods of avoidance rather than resolution. The ego does not really want to resolve conflict because it is the idea of conflict, being the wish for specialness. When conflict is undone, the ego is undone with it. So the ego will avoid the resolution of conflict at all costs out of self preservation. It is no wonder this world is a world of conflict, being the making of the ego.

The ego does not want us to recognize that inherent in specialness is conflict. And so it offers us many deceitful disguises, calling it by many names. In special relationships it is called love, or adoration or acceptance or respect. The ego gives hidden meaning to these terms. With the ego’s meaning of love there is always a hidden agenda. It says, “I will know you love me if you ...” which is followed by a long list of behaviors and to do’s, many unspoken but if unmet, bring out our wrath. Can this be love?

The Course tells us that Love makes no demands because Love is one and complete in itself. It has no needs, so making a demand is inconceivable to Love. Love gives freely because it is limitless and eternal, and Love’s nature is to give of Itself. Because Love is one, Love gives only to Itself, for there is no “other.”

But the ego’s definition of love has endless conditions and demands. Conflict is inevitable, because special love’s demands conflict with each other. In one circumstance a certain behavior is acceptable. In another it is not. And so in this world we wander about seeking for “love,” not realizing that we are seeking conflict. What we seek under the guidance of the ego will never satisfy because the ego seeks where real Love cannot be found. The ego’s substitute for Love never brings peace because, although it might appear appealing on the surface, conflict lies hidden below, waiting for its chance to raise its fearsome head.

The way out of this painful illusion is forgiveness. This forgiveness must come through recognition of the deceits the ego offers. Throughout the Course, again and again, the many forms the ego’s deceits take are brought to our attention. It’s not a pretty picture. But we have wandered in a world of illusion so long that we don’t recognize the illusion for what it is, and so we must be taught. By the grace of God, we have a Teacher in our mind Who will help us see the illusions for what they are.

This is why it is so important for us to remember that on our own we do not know what anything means. As we practice bringing all our thoughts to the Holy Spirit and open our minds to His perception, we will learn to recognize all the hidden conflicts and let them go. We will let them go because the Holy Spirit will show us that they are really nothing. There will be no sense of loss or sacrifice because they will cease to have value to us. “Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.”

There was a paragraph in your comments that really caught my attention. You said, “With the ego’s meaning of love there is always a hidden agenda. It says, “I will know you love me if you ...” which is followed by a long list of behaviors and to do’s, many unspoken but if unmet, bring out our wrath.” Lately, when I am with my daughter and her partner, I have several times made “funny” remarks about being ignored by them. I guess that by keeping it light and humorous I was trying not to sound demanding.

I didn’t even consciously realize I was doing it until I read what you said. I didn’t realize I was feeling so left out of their lives, but I guess I am and that it matters to me. I have been making some rules for them to follow without coming right out with them. I wasn’t telling my daughter and I wasn’t even telling myself, but I was certainly expecting them to be followed. I’m grateful to see this. Now I can take it to the Holy Spirit for healing.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 332 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 332 Insights

“Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.”

In this season, when gift giving is on everyone’s mind, it is helpful to remember that there is no greater gift we can offer anyone, including ourselves, than the gift of forgiveness. It is a gift that keeps on giving, because it opens our minds to the eternal Love that we are. It replaces illusion with truth. It replaces bondage with freedom. It replaces conflict with peace. It replaces depression with happiness. All this forgiveness offers.

In the Course, forgiveness means letting go of illusions, letting go of the past and future. Forgiveness opens our minds to God’s gift of the present, the eternal now. In truth there is no other time. Love is here. Love is now. To know the freedom that Love gave us in our creation, we must forgive. Any perception of conflict, any thought of fear, any lack of peace, any pain is a signal that forgiveness is needed.

Our job is to learn to recognize the signal and take each of these thoughts and feelings to the Holy Spirit. His Light of Love will show us the illusion on which the pain and fear is based and shine it away. We cannot hide the fear in a corner, shove the judgment under the carpet, and pretend it is not there. This only delays our awareness of the joy God holds out to us. It is only by taking these thoughts to the Holy Spirit and asking for His help with an open mind that we can find release and know the freedom that forgiveness brings.

Today I ask the Holy Spirit’s help that together we may offer the gift of forgiveness to my brother and myself. For I would know the freedom forgiveness brings.

In this lesson, Jesus is telling us we have a choice. We can hang on to our limited perceptions of a world of separation and individuality. Or we can choose to open to the perceptions of the Holy Spirit, Which shines the false ideas of the ego thought system away.

When we join with the ego, we think that our illusions of uniqueness and individuality are so special. We have loved our differences and have guarded it carefully. We have thought we really did make something different from God’s universal oneness, God’s universal Love. We have thought that God’s peace would be boring. We have looked for excitement in seeing something new and different and the competition specialness brings.

We are reminded in this lesson that the ego makes only illusions and that what we have really bought into is sin, guilt and fear. We have bought into the idea that we really did separate (sin). We secretly feel guilty for usurping God’s authority and we project our own attack onto God. We are then fearful of God’s retaliation.

The stories we make up in this world reflect how guilty we truly believe we are. In trying to get rid of the guilt, we project that guilt onto those we see as outside of us. It becomes a very fearful scenario, full of defend and attack. We try to atone for our ‘sin’ of choosing separation by making up stories of sickness, deprivation and death.

Jesus wants us to understand that this need not be. We can let go of our belief in separation and we can let our minds be returned to the truth. We do this through forgiveness. We do this through opening our minds to the perception of the Holy Spirit. “Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.”

This lesson is a good one for me today. I had decorated a wicker pumpkin for the Thanksgiving holiday and brought it to work and used it as a decoration at the front desk of my place of employment, with the intention of taking it back home when the holiday was over. With all the flowers and other stuff I put into it, not to mention my time and effort, it turned out to be costly.

When I came into work this morning, I saw the pumpkin was missing. Someone apparently stole it. Initially, I was angry and hurt that someone would do that. I’ve got a lot of spirit when it comes to holidays and I had thought of bringing in Christmas things to decorate, but, right away, I began to think, “I won’t ever bring in anything else again. How can some people be so thoughtless and inconsiderate? I don’t know why I bother, etc., etc.”

This is the sort of situation that I can dwell on over and over in my mind. These resentments can control me and rule the type of day I will have. But with the practice of these lessons, I’ve learned to turn my anger, my fear, my judgments over to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to help me to see things differently.

I don’t know who took my decoration, but somehow, it doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m learning to value my peace and serenity. My priorities are changing and today I choose to experience God’s peace instead of dwelling on my fears that show up in anger, distrust and resentment. Fear truly does bind the world and I can experience how forgiveness sets it free because today, right now, I am at peace. Thank you Holy Spirit.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 331 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 331 Insights

“There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.”

This lesson highlights the stark difference between what the Course teaches us about God and what most of us learned about God from our cultures and religions. As I read the first paragraph, I felt a sense of comfort from having a Father Who loves me and Who’s will for me is that I be safe and that no matter what “trouble” I seem to get myself into, He provides the means for me to find my way out. His Love does not judge, but sees me always as part of Him sharing all that He is and all that He has. How blessed am I to have a Father Who loves me without judgment, without limit, Who loves me as Himself.

The ego paints a very different picture. Because the ego is the idea of judgment and guilt, it projects this on its image of God and teaches us that God is judgmental and would condemn us to pain, suffering and death for the guilt He sees in us. If you want to know what the ego believes about itself, look at the judgmental image of God it portrays. This image is not real and could never be real. Yet in our feverish dreams of insanity, pain, suffering and death seem very real.

But our loving, compassionate Father provided a way out of these terrorizing hallucinations. It is the Holy Spirit in our minds. No matter how deeply we believe we are in darkness, the Holy Spirit is always with us, ready to shine His Light on the way Home. The only reason we do not see His Light is because we deny it. We don’t see what we don’t want to see. But that doesn’t mean the help is not available to us.

We need only ask. It is not the Holy Spirit That needs us to ask. It is we who need the asking because in our asking we acknowledge our willingness and openness to another way of seeing. The Holy Spirit does not impose. He merely offers His Light. We must accept it. Love waits only on welcome. There is no other condition, for Love makes no demands. What is already whole and complete is in need of nothing.

Today I am willing to give up wandering in a world of darkness, where separation seems to be real and I believe I am vulnerable to myriad forces intent upon my destruction. Today I am willing to take my thoughts to the Holy Spirit in my mind to let His Light show me what is unreal so that I can let it go. And I will let His light show me the Love that is real so that I may join with It and know It as my own.

Thus will I cease to be in conflict with the world. I will learn to see the Love in all things and I will learn to answer calls for Love with Love. Such is the Holy Spirit’s teaching. His teaching reminds me that only Love is real and that the Will of Love is that I remain one with It. And so I must be. My true Self rests in calm serenity, remembering that there is no conflict, for my will is Love’s Will.

Today’s lesson reflects the proper use of denial. Conflict could never be real because it is not God’s Will. Separation could never be real because it is not God’s Will. There is no will accept the Will of God. Illusions of separation do not make reality.

Today’s lesson truly reflects our real Will, which is changeless and eternal. Our real Will knows its oneness with God. Our real Will does not try to make illusions of separation real. Our real Will sees that conflict is just mistaken ideas that mean nothing and are nothing.

Today I would practice returning to my real Will. This is forgiveness — seeing illusions for the false ideas that they are. Today I would practice accepting that the truth of oneness is true and nothing else is true. Love is. God is. And then I cease to speak. “There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.”

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 330 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 330 Insights

“I will not hurt myself again today.”

I attack myself when I refuse to accept my true Identity. I attack myself when I refuse to accept that God’s Will for me is my will. When I cut myself off from my Source in order to have the impression that I am separate and alone, I am attacking myself. I would not hurt myself again today.

Today I would take one more step toward letting go of the false ideas of limitation and lack. Refusing to accept my own Identity is painful. It creates anxiety and the feeling of lack and loss. Forgiveness is my function here. Today I would practice choosing forgiveness, or letting go of false perceptions, every time I am tempted to teach myself the ego’s lessons in limitation and lack.

Holy Spirit, today I would practice opening my mind to You all through the day. Today I would practice following Your lead. I have followed the wrong teacher and have been sorely mistaken. I have lost the awareness of my true Identity and I now know that You will help me return to the truth that I have never left. Today I am willing to practice accepting God’s gifts. Today I am willing to practice opening my mind to Your healing perceptions. “I will not hurt myself again today.”

My natural state, the only real state, is oneness with Love, my Creator. To not experience that unity and all the gifts that come with it, I must actively choose against it. I would only choose against it if I believed that this choice would give me something of greater value.

The ego is the idea that it is possible to have something of greater value than all of God’s Love, all of His peace and all of His joy, eternally. Only insanity would believe this and thus this world is an insane world. Insanity means being unaware of reality. To believe in this world we must be unaware of reality. The ego offers us specialness, telling us that specialness — uniqueness and independence — is worth more than all of God’s Love.

Every time we choose specialness over God’s Love we are hurting ourselves. We are choosing to be cut off from our source of strength and power and peace and joy. It is not our Creator that cuts us off. It is our own denial of our Source and our Self that gives us the experience of being separate and alone. The ego teaches us that this is a good thing. It teaches us that this gives us autonomy, independence and control. It does not tell us that this control is control of nothing and that to be independent we must give up our strength, our safety and our peace.

Gratefully because we cannot change Reality, we have the freedom in every moment to stop choosing against Reality and accept our Self as Love created It. The decision to choose insanity is not irreversible. The moment we made that choice, God placed in our minds His Answer to lead us back to our Home in Him. God (Love) knows us as Its own, changeless and unchangeable. He has left the light on for us to welcome us Home. And even more: He has given us a Guide to show us the way back to the Light.

Today I will practice remembering that I remain as God created me. I am not a body. I am free to Love without limit and accept Love without limit. Thus will I open my heart and my mind to the experience of my wholeness in Love. “I will not hurt myself again today.”

I hurt myself when I forget who I am. If I perceive myself as suffering, I have made a choice to do so. It is within me to choose again, to draw from His power and His love and remember that He shares that power and love with me and therefore cannot suffer. I also have to be patient with myself and remember that this is a process. This is very important because, too often, I get frustrated and it is only in fear that I begin to question the process. But today I can let the process flow and step back, ask for guidance, and say to myself over and over, “I will not hurt myself again today.” Thank you, Father, thank you Holy Spirit.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 329 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 329 Insights

“I have already chosen what You will.”

The ego would have me believe that to “yield” to God’s Will is a sacrifice. Is it a sacrifice to be safe, untroubled and serene and filled with endless joy? That’s what the ego would have me believe. The ego wants me to believe that what it offers is worth more than this. How could this be? In truth it cannot. But if I am willing to accept illusions in place of truth, then I am giving illusions greater value.

The “best” that the ego can offer is specialness, which it calls love. It directs us to look for specialness in myriad ways. We look for it in relationships. We look for it in having the right clothes or car, house or job. We look for it in money or in having a piece of paper that honors our accomplishment or a trophy that says we are better than anyone else at something.

Yet all these things are always temporary. All things in this world begin to decay the moment they are made. A relationship with another body is always at risk because that other body can walk away, misbehave or die. Can this be worth more than eternal joy, safety and peace? We have thought it was, blindly following the ego’s direction.

The Course is teaching us to recognize we have been mistaken. It is showing us that the baubles and shiny trinkets of this world have no value. Our value lies in our unity with our Creator. Our value lies in the Love that we already are. We do not need to strive for value, for it is already ours. We need only recognize it. Believing that the thought system of the ego is our home, we need help from outside the thought system to recognize its falsity. By the grace of God, we have that Help — the Holy Spirit in our minds.

It seems that we need to choose the Will of God, but in reality we need only accept what already is ours. It is not our will to wander endlessly, searching for value, searching for love. It is our will to be the Love we were created to be. By doing this, we accept the safety, the serenity and the eternal joy that are characteristics of Love.

Since I have believed the illusions of this world were real, I need help with recognizing them for what they are. Thus I need to maintain the practice of taking all my thoughts to the Holy Spirit for His interpretation. With this practice and willingness I will gradually recognize what is valuable and what is valueless.

Today I will practice again taking my thoughts to the Holy Spirit with an open mind so I can receive the blessing of His interpretation. He will show me the Love beyond the veils of illusion and He will respond with Love to my calls for Love and teach me to do the same for my brothers. Thus will I learn that Love is always the answer in every situation. And I give thanks.

Trying to be what I am not will never work. Trying to make up something other than What I am is just a hopeless dream. It is time to let go of the dream. It is time to realize that I never could change my Identity, for I am God’s Will. It is time to wake up to the truth that nothing has happened but God’s Will. Dreams of individuality and competition are not God’s Will and therefore are not my will. God’s Will cannot change, therefore I cannot change.

Today it is my opportunity to recognize this truth as I go through my day. Today it is my opportunity to recognize the truth and lay illusions down. Today it is my opportunity to see wholeness where I once saw separation. Today it is my opportunity to recognize the illusions of separation for what they are. This false will could never be true, could never be real. Today it is my opportunity to recognize that only the truth is true and nothing else is true. It is time that I wake up to reality.

Thanks for talking about specialness. Since I started doing the Pathways course 905: Special Relationships vs. Holy Relationships, I am understanding specialness more, but my whole world is built on the idea of specialness and I appreciate the clear description you gave above. Specialness is so pervasive in my life (and sometimes so in very subtle ways) that I find it helpful to look at it from different directions. I mostly find it helpful to look at frequently. I think awareness is my best tactic here.

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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 328 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 328 Insights

“I choose the second place to gain the first.”

Sometimes I feel on the verge of experiencing unity with Holy Spirit. There is a sense of inner joy mixed with anticipation, like the feeling of getting close to home after a long trip away. Sometimes I experience deep peace and a feeling of Love and compassion for everything I think about. Sometimes I feel like I am just on the surface of this experience and other times I’m able to go deeper into it. Yet I know that I have yet to plumb its depths.

My attachment to the world of form that I have thought was home is still too strong for me to let it go completely, which I must do to fully experience unity with the Holy Spirit and my Creator. It seems that when I get too close to this experience, something will distract me. A sound will get my attention and I will start thinking about what it is or what it means. Or I might think of something on my “to do” list. Or I might think of a conversation I had or even expect to have. These are a few of the ways my ego mind will distract me so that I don’t fully experience my unity with all.

This distraction is essential to the ego’s existence. The ego is the idea of separation and disappears in the experience of unity. That is why to the ego, salvation is autonomy and complete independence from God and all His Creations, extensions of Love. It is helpful to remember that this mind wandering is just the ego’s defense against Love. It is its attempt to make it appear that it has succeeded in making a will of its own and therefore has usurped God and become “number one.”

I can choose differently. By choosing to put this ‘will’ second and accepting that God’s Will is really mine, I open the door to the memory of my Self, which is still one with Love, Its Creator. This is why I must “choose the second place to gain the first.”

These tastes or hints of the experience of unity with the Holy Spirit motivate me to keep practicing. I know there is much more to experience — greater joy, greater peace and greater love — than I have yet to experience. And so today I practice again putting the Holy Spirit’s Will in the lead and choosing to follow so that I may once again experience my Home in Heaven.

This world is a distraction from knowing God’s Will. This world is the effect of choosing independence from God’s Will. The distraction of the body could take up all my time if I let it. This distraction will continue until I change my mind about the purpose of the world. My experience of this false world will continue until I am willing to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead.

The Holy Spirit will lead me in a thought reversal. The Holy Spirit will lead me into peace. But I must let go of thinking that I know what anything means on my own. I must have an open mind. Following Holy Spirit’s lead, I will gradually wake up from the dream completely. I will let go of the idea of having an independent reality. I will learn to see past the ego’s image making and become aware of God’s Thoughts. To do this I must be willing to follow and not lead. “I choose the second place to gain the first.”

I appreciate knowing that I am not the only one who has that problem — distractions when I meditate. I get very discouraged sometimes because even when I seem to be doing well, I will suddenly realize that my mind has gone off on a tangent that has nothing to do with my meditation. Now I understand what is going on. Thanks for that. Also, I think that this is the first time I have really understood the phrase “I choose the second place to gain the first.”

This distraction is essential to the ego’s existence. Thank you. That helps me, because that is a big problem for me at times. With this, I will work to go beyond, rather than giving up, which is what ego demands.

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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 327 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 327 Insights

“I need but call and You will answer me.”

With this lesson, it helps me to remember that God is Love and nothing else. So the title can be read, “I need but call and Love will answer me.” In this world, God seems to be distant. This is because the world was made to keep God out. This world is the effect of the denial of God. Because the denial of God is the denial of Love, the ego had to make a substitute that would seem at least to temporarily satisfy so that we would not go searching to try to find the Love we seem to have lost. This substitute is specialness.

Because this world is the effect of the denial of Love, there is an underlying emptiness that we feel. It is because we are denying our Self. And so we spend our lives searching for Love. But when we follow the ego’s direction, it can only direct us to its substitute for love — specialness.

The ego does not know how to find Love, because separation cannot conceive of the unity of Love. And so as long as we follow the ego’s dictates, we search endlessly for substitutes that never satisfy. This fits the ego’s credo of seek and do not find. This lesson is telling us that this need not be.

Instead of looking to the ego and its substitutes for Love, if we call upon Love, Love will answer. To do this we must learn to disregard the ego’s thought system. How do we call upon Love? We call upon the Holy Spirit in our minds, which is the link between Love, and the identity we think we are in this dream. We bring all our judgments, which stand as a barrier against Love, to the Holy Spirit. This is how we forgive and this is how we open our minds to Love’s Answer.

Today I will call upon Love by continuing to practice bringing my thoughts of fear, guilt and separation to the Holy Spirit. I will practice returning to the peace of God within me so that I may listen with an open mind to Love’s Answer. Thus will I experience the truth of God’s promise. Each time I have a moment of peace, a moment of release from guilt, my conviction of the reality of Love’s promise grows stronger. My heart is filled with gratitude to Love’s Answer in my mind that assures me of Its eternal presence and unity with me. I am learning the truth that, “I need but call and You will answer me.”

Conviction comes with practice. Conviction comes with being willing to quiet my mind and open up to receiving God’s peace. With God’s peace, comes understanding, for with one comes the other.

The Holy Spirit knows how to heal my mind of all its false ideas. The Holy Spirit has every answer that I need, for the Holy Spirit is the Answer. The Holy Spirit will bridge me from where I think I am to the awareness of my true Identity as Love. I need but follow. I need but be receptive with an open mind. The Holy Spirit answers in a form which will be most helpful in the moment.

The more I practice opening to the Holy Spirit’s answer, the more my conviction grows that this really works. As my conviction grows it leads to certainty.

How often I accept Holy Spirit’s help is determined by my willingness. And each time I accept Holy Spirit’s help, it paves the way to even greater understanding. It paves the way to building an even stronger habit of generalizing it to every part of my life where I do not yet feel peaceful. As I practice, I will learn the truth of the statement, “To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering: I will forgive and this will disappear.” (W-pI.193.13:3-4)

As I continue this practice of opening to the Holy Spirit with every concern, my faith in the Holy Spirit strengthens, day-by-day. My willingness to be consistent grows with continued practice. I see that the Holy Spirit is right there, willing to tell me how I can be truly helpful with every situation. I need but call and the Holy Spirit will answer me.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 326 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 326 Insights

“I am forever an Effect of God.”

As I go through my day, let me remember that “I am forever an Effect of God.” This thought reminds me that I am still as God created me. Nothing has changed. Illusions of individuality cannot change the Truth of what we all are.

I open my mind to the Holy Spirit today and ask that the Light of Truth shine away all the false ideas I have been holding on to. I am willing to follow God’s plan of awakening. I am willing to let my mind be healed today. Let me apply this remembering to every circumstance I encounter in the dream today. I choose to let today be a day of mind healing. I choose to remember that “I am forever an Effect of God.” I choose to be happy instead of right.

The world is transformed when forgiveness is complete, when all illusions have been let go. This transformed world is seen for an instant and then disappears as we awaken in the Heaven that is our Home. Once again we see that forgiveness is the key to release from insane dreams of separation, suffering, pain, loss and death.

The Holy Spirit eagerly awaits our gifts of fear and guilt, judgment and grievances. To Him they are gifts, because when we turn them over to Him, He can exchange them with the gift of Christ’s vision, of peace and happiness and Love. This is His purpose. Our gifts of judgment, guilt and fear He recognizes as illusions and thus to Him their only purpose is that they are an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to give us His blessing in return. He is a Friend indeed. He takes our gifts of pain and transforms them with His Love to gifts of blessing.

Today I dedicate to practicing giving all my thoughts to Him so that I may receive His blessings, which shine on me and show me my Self. His blessings reveal the truth in me and all my brothers. And so I gladly give my gifts of illusions and receive the truth. Thus I will remember, “I am forever an Effect of God.”

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Listen to Lesson 325 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 325 Insights

“All things I think I see reflect ideas.”

The first paragraph in this lesson gives a concise description of the process of projection. Particularly, it points out that everything we experience is the effect of our decision of what we wish for. This is salvation’s keynote, because it places the control of what we experience directly in our own minds. We have full power over all that we experience. We are not a victim at the mercy of forces outside of us and beyond our control.

We have the power of decision. We can hold on to our insane wishes to be separate, unique and special and we will experience the effects of those wishes. But we can wish for something different. We can wish to let those go and seek instead to see with the Holy Spirit’s eyes. This is forgiveness. With this wish we see a kind and gentle world, a world of peace and happiness.

Is the world I see peaceful and joyful? Then I am wanting what the Holy Spirit wants. I am recognizing that my will and God’s are the same. I am wanting to see innocence and the unity I share with all my brothers in the one Self that is Love’s Extension.

Do I see conflict, loss and lack? Then I am holding on to insane wishes for separation and specialness. I think my will is in opposition to God’s Will as well as in opposition to the “wills” of all my brothers. In either case, it is I who have made the choice of what I want to see. By the grace of God, choosing insanity is not irrevocable. In every moment I can choose to let insanity go.

As I go through my day, I can be mindful of my thoughts. When I become aware of thoughts of judgment, which are thoughts of separation, I can bring these thoughts to the Holy Spirit and, with His help, let them go. Thus I forgive and once again see a peaceful, kind and gentle world. This is my dedication today as I remember “All things I think I see reflect ideas.”

In Chapter 15, Section VI., paragraphs 4-5 and 7 of the Text, (pgs. 315-316) Jesus tells us that like God, we are an idea. “What you find difficult to accept is the fact that, like your Father, you are an idea. And like Him, you can give yourself completely, wholly without loss and only with gain.” (4:5) “In the holy instant you recognize the idea of Love in you, and unite this idea with the Mind that thought it, and could not relinquish it.” (5:3) In returning to God, we are returning to the idea of Love in us. We stop trying to change our true Identity as Love. We are willing to realize that any ideas that are different from the idea of Love in us are just made up dreams.

Today I open to the all encompassing idea of Love in my mind. Today I choose to join with the idea of Love and let go of wanting to project insane ideas that reflect separation and individuality. I would follow. I would not lead. Only the Idea of Love reflects the truth. Let me behold the truth today. I choose to return to Reality.

It always helps me to know why things happen the way they do and this lesson does, indeed, describe the process of projection. There is a great sense of power knowing that I can stop insanity at the level in which it begins; in this case, my mind.

I really do have control over my world. I am the dreamer of my dream, the writer of my script and I have the power to change the script and eliminate the parts that make me uncomfortable or unhappy. It’s a process and these lessons guide me and speed up that process when I allow myself to make that choice.

Today, I too, open myself to the idea of love, all encompassing, in all I do, all I experience. I know, without a doubt, that if I stay focused on this idea, my world will be at peace today and I know this because this is my Father’s will for me.

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Listen to Lesson 324 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 324 Insights

“I merely follow, for I would not lead.”

Looking out through the body’s eyes is like having blinders on because what we see through the body’s eyes is the opposite of the truth. Because we are blind to the truth, we need a Guide Who is not deceived by what the body’s eyes show us. We need the Holy Spirit’s guidance to show us the difference between truth and illusion.

Because we have been so totally lost in the forest of our belief in separation, we cannot find our way out without help. The way to do this is to refrain from deciding what anything means on our own, and recognize that we have been blinded by our false beliefs.

Our thoughts of separation, which is what this world is based on, seem so real to us that we don’t realize that we need to question these thoughts. These thoughts are false ideas and so the premise on which this world is based is totally false.

In truth, there never could be a world of separate bodies. The world is not real. Bodies are not real. Minds are not separate. We have been very mistaken in the story we have been telling ourselves. We have gotten so caught up in the story that most of our thinking is based on the premise that it is true.

As we continue following this false premise, we just keep going deeper and deeper into the ego’s mire of false perception, which only causes more guilt and fear. The only way out is to avoid making any decisions on our own.

We need to be willing to go to that place in our mind that has not joined with separation. We need to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, hour by hour, day by day. In truth we are not a separate individual with a unique, separate mind encased within a separate body. This is not true. There is only one true Mind and that is the Mind of Love. We have never changed from that Love. We remain as Love created us. We are an Idea in the Mind of Love.

As we open to the truth, we are gently led back to the totality of Love which has never changed. We are led back as we are willing to follow and not make decisions on our own. “I merely follow, for I would not lead.”

You may have heard someone referred to as a “control freak” or as having control issues. The truth is that everyone in this world has control issues. This world is the effect of rejecting God’s Will and wanting to be in control. It’s like we are all teenagers trying to establish our independence from our Parent. The Course refers to this syndrome often. It is what it refers to when it talks about our attempt to self-create and when it talks about the “authority problem.” The wish to be in control is the rejection of God’s Will that we are one Mind, which is undivided and the same.

The cost of “being in control” is the perceived loss of our unity with our Creator. That loss of unity means that we have lost awareness of the strength and Love that is ours because of our unity with our Creator. The result is that though we seem to have established control, what we have control of is only an illusion. There is no substance to it.

We are in control of the images we make up in our mind. We can have those images act out our beliefs. They can seem to be in conflict or they can seem to be special partners, allies with which we feel safe in a dangerous world of images. Yet all these images we control have no substance, no meaning in truth, no reality. So we go through “life” playing with images, thinking that they are real, yet feeling empty, alone and lacking Love.

To remember the Love we are and that is ours, there is only one thing to do. We must give up our attempt to control and accept that, in truth, God’s Will is our will. We must be willing to follow the inner Guide in our minds Who remains our Link with our Source.

By relinquishing control and following that Guide, we awaken to the Love, strength, peace and joy of the Self That remains united with Its Source. We give up control of nothing and gain everything, all that is real. We return to Love. This is why it is important for me to remember, ” I merely follow, for I would not lead.”

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Listen to Lesson 323 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 323 Insights

“I gladly make the “sacrifice” of fear.”

It is becoming more and more clear to me that all suffering is self-inflicted. The moment I judge anything, I have given up my peace. Lack of peace is suffering. It seems sometimes that I have an inner gauge against which I measure the happiness I allow myself. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have decided how much happiness I am worthy of.

When I exceed that self-determined limit, I will do something to disrupt the happiness. It could be as simple as letting my wandering mind think of a conversation in which I felt criticized. The other person’s words did not cause discomfort or loss of peace. It was my interpretation of the words or the body language or the tone of voice that caused me to decide I was being criticized. The moment the memory of that experience reentered my mind, my level of happiness diminished. The only purpose of reviewing such events in my mind, to revisit old judgments, is to disrupt my peace, to reinforce my fear or guilt.

To experience the peace and joy of God I simply need to give up bringing these thoughts of the past to the present. By “sacrificing” these painful memories of nothing, of dreamed events that never truly happened, I open my mind to the memory of Love, my Self. That is all that is asked of me. Forgive the past. Let it go. In return for this “sacrifice,” the fullness of God’s gift of Love and joy and peace returns to me.

Today I ask Holy Spirit’s help to be vigilant with me to see these painful thoughts. I give them all to Him, knowing that He knows what to do with them. And I open my mind to the Thoughts of Love He gives me in return. O happy day! Thus will I receive the kind of day God intended for me. Thus will I prepare my mind to return to full awareness of Heaven, where I still reside in truth.

Letting go of the ego thought system is the cost of remembering God. The pain and suffering that comes with the ego thought system is not worth the cost. The belief in individuality, the belief in being separated from God, the belief in death, limitation and lack, is not worth the cost. The belief in specialness, in uniqueness, the belief in differences, is not worth the cost. The belief in time — the belief that there is a past or a future — closes off awareness of the holy instant in the eternal present. The belief in time is not worth the cost.

Looked at with clarity, the ego thought system is simply insanity. All these beliefs create images and experiences that have no substance in reality. They have not been true and never will be true. Belief in loss brings the experience of loss. This need not be.

Our job now is to let go of the ego thought system, not to sacrifice because letting it go will only bring us peace and joy, and a return of Love. Letting go of the ego thought system brings us to the awareness of Heaven.

We are God’s Creation. We are still Thought in the Mind of God. Laying down the ego thought system is the only really important thing we have to do while we still think we are here. As we let go of the ego thought system, we will see that we never really left God. The eternal present in God is all there is.

Today, “I gladly make the ‘sacrifice’ of fear.” I am willing to look at the ego thoughts that come into my mind today and hand them over to the Holy Spirit to be undone. I no longer choose to experience the painful effects that come with the belief in the ego thought system. I no longer choose to believe that I am separated from the oneness of God’s Love.

Thank you for reminding me that I set up my own agenda for happiness and that I have the power to make the necessary changes in my thinking which will allow me, along with Holy Spirit, to dwell in happiness and joy forever! It is so obvious now how I have sabotaged my happiness.

We do, so many times, allow ourselves just a certain amount of happiness. We’re so familiar with the insanity and unfamiliar with peace, that we actually feel uncomfortable when our lives are running smoothly.

How many times have you heard someone say “Everything is going so well, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to fall.” We feel like something’s wrong if everything is going right.

Because the Course is teaching me the definition of “right,” there is a freedom in the realization that all suffering is self-inflicted; it’s only at that very level that I can change that fact. The more I am willing to allow the Holy Spirit to guide me, the more I realize the only thing I am “sacrificing” is fear and that’s a miracle. Thank you, my Heavenly Divine Guidance, for walking through this awakening with me.

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Listen to Lesson 322 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 322 Insights

“I can give up but what was never real.”

Central to the ego thought system of separation is the idea of loss and sacrifice. If separation is real, loss must be real. To gain something, what is gained must have been taken from something other than itself. The sacrifice of one is demanded for another’s gain.

Allegiance with the ego thought system demands that we sacrifice awareness of Love. Because the ego demands sacrifice, it uses its standard defense mechanism of projection and tells us that God demands sacrifice of us. This is the way it tries to get rid of its guilt.

In this scenario it is projecting its guilt on God, making God appear to be the devil in disguise. As long as we follow the ego thought system, we will be afraid of God’s Will, believing that He demands sacrifice. All this is just the ego’s lies used to protect it and keep it in place as the “ruler” of our mind. The ego does not tell us that it is the one demanding sacrifice. The ego does not tell us that by giving up allegiance to the ego, the thought of sacrifice is undone and God’s eternal Love is returned to our awareness.

Love makes no demands. It only gives of Itself. By letting go of identification with a separate identity and returning to the recognition that I am the Self God created, the holy Son of God, I give up nothing and become aware that I have everything that is real. All of God’s Love is mine, for I share His Love with Him and with all Creation.

Holy Spirit, help me today to recognize the false ideas of loss for what they are. I turn my thoughts of fear and guilt over to you Holy Spirit with an open mind. I know that you will teach me what is real and what is not real and I will learn to recognize that I am Love and nothing else along with all my brothers. I can give up but what was never real.

Do I really want to wake up to the awareness that I have never really left Heaven? If so, I will be willing to look at all my replacements for Heaven. To do this I ask myself: What am I using to occupy my mind that is really a barrier to the awareness of God’s Love? What am I using to replace God?

I can watch my mind all day and see the barriers to Love for what they are. Everything in the world of form is really nothing and was never real. It is my desire to see specialness and individuality that brings me the images I see in this world.

As I hand my mind over to the Holy Spirit, I am learning that all these images were never real. As I recognize them as unreal, giving them up is no sacrifice. Opening to the truth is no sacrifice. It only brings me infinite peace, infinite joy and the awareness of changeless Love That is there forever.

Today my practice is to look at all my barriers to Love and hand them over to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will show me that every illusion of separate forms is unreal. The Holy Spirit helps me change my mind. The Holy Spirit helps me recognize that all that I valued before is really worth nothing and can be let go of easily without feeling that I am sacrificing something.

Holding on to something that was really nothing is just a burden. What a relief to lift these burdens and find the freedom the Holy Spirit offers me every day. “I can give up but what was never real.”

The thing that strengthens my faith in these lessons is that when I get in one of my “poor me” moods, wondering what life is about and why I have to do without the things I think I need or the things that I’M SURE would make me happy, I remember that at one time I got tired of being afraid, tired of being frustrated, tired of wondering what life was about.

Today, when I get into this kind of fear, it’s like God asks me, “Remember you asked me to help you? Remember you got tired of living the way you were?” The practice of these lessons have taught me to turn my thoughts and especially my attitude over to the Holy Spirit, to the One Who knows truth. When I am willing to surrender my old beliefs and the thoughts of sacrifice, He opens other worlds for me and in those worlds there is peace, there is love, there is the memory of my Heavenly Father. Thank you Holy Spirit.

I love the question you asked, “What am I using to occupy my mind that is really a barrier to the awareness of God’s Love?” I wrote it in my day timer so I would see it every time I open it tomorrow. I want to really think about this because I know I do this a lot. Sometimes I will catch myself dwelling in some pretty dark places in my mind and take them to Holy Spirit. Then before the process is over, I find myself thinking about something I need to do later in the day. That is a pretty obvious barrier that I use often and I bet there are lots more not so obvious. Thanks for the suggestion. I look forward to seeing where it takes me.

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ACIM Workbook Lesson 321 Insights

“Father, my freedom is in You alone.”

The ego thinks freedom is independence from God. The ego thinks it means being in control and not under the influence of anyone else’s wishes or demands. The ego thinks it means being separate and distinct. Like Garfield, the cartoon character, the ego says, “I need my space.”

The ego treasures this independence and maintains it by doing everything it can to make separation appear real. Yet to have this independence, limitation must be accepted. If we identify with the ego, we are no longer free to extend Love without limit. We are no longer free to experience the joy of unity with All That Is. We are no longer free to know the certainty of timelessness and eternal Love. Can this limitation really be freedom?

When we accept our unity with God, when we accept our Self as God created It, we are free to experience all Love everywhere, eternally. We are free of all limitation. We can only experience this freedom when we accept our total dependence on God, Who defines What we are by creating us exactly as Himself.

The recognition of our dependence on God is the acceptance of our freedom to Love without limit, to experience His limitless joy, and to know His peace without interruption. This is our freedom. All our strength comes from God’s Love. There is no other strength. To know our dependence on God and accept it is to accept all power, all Love, all joy, all peace as our own. This is freedom. I thank you Father for your gifts to me.

The sentences that stand out to me in this lesson are: “Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more.” (1:2-3) My freedom comes from not guiding myself. My freedom does not come from the mindless judgments of the ego. That only imprisons me.

Today it is my job to be vigilant as to whose voice I am listening to. Whose mind am I joining with, the limiting thoughts of the ego or the freeing thoughts of the Holy Spirit? Today I would be vigilant to practice joining with the Holy Spirit.

Today I would practice stepping back and watching the thoughts that are in my mind. Are these thoughts coming from Love? I can tell because Love knows that only Love is real. Love sees past the illusions to the truth. Love does not compare, because Love sees no differences. Love is at peace, because there is no fear in Love.

Today I would practice following Love’s guidance. I know that my freedom lies in returning to Love, my Home and my Source.

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