Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Awakening to the Love We Are

My mind holds only what I think with God.

That is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself. It is this thought that fully guarantees salvation to the Son. For in his mind no thoughts can dwell but those his Father shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this thought from his awareness. Yet it is forever true.

Let us begin our preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because they are illusions, they are not perceived to be but what they are; defenses that protect your unforgiving thoughts from being seen and recognized. Their purpose is to show you something else, and hold correction off through self-deceptions made to take its place.

And yet, your mind holds only what you think with God. Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson Review IV, W-pI.RevIV.2:2-4:2. See also ACIM Lesson Review IV Insights.)

Because God is only Love, His Thoughts are only Love. Our true Self is only Love so our right mind holds only thoughts of Love which are shared with God. Only Love creates. (T-25.III.1) We co-create with God by extending only Love as He does.

The split mind is a way of describing the dream of separation. Nothing in a dream really exists, but it seems very real from within the dream. The dream is a judgment against the oneness of Love. From within the dream we are unaware of the loving thoughts we share with God because the dream denies the reality of Love.

Our identification with being an individual in the dream is self-deception. We are believing we are an illusionary self, disconnected from everyone and everything. As we let the Holy Spirit help us let go of this false belief, we become more aware of our right mind and the loving thoughts we share with God. The dream fades and we become aware of the truth that only Love is real.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to Be in the World, But Not of It

Truth has a power far beyond defense, for no illusions can remain where truth has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay down its arms, and cease to play with folly. It is found at any time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.

We [begin] with a healing prayer, to help us rise above defensiveness, and let truth be as it has always been:

Sickness is a defense against the truth.
I will accept the truth of what I am,
and let my mind be wholly healed today.

Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal, and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.”

Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer. Do not be confused about what must be healed, but tell yourself:

I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself.
Sickness is a defense against the truth. But I am not a body.
And my mind cannot attack. So I can not be sick. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 136, W-pI.136.14;15:5-16:4;20. See also ACIM Lesson 136 Insights.)

Identifying with the body as our identity is a defense against the truth that our Identity is the one Mind of Love. The body is a constructed image made by the ego thought system of separation. It uses the body to set a limit on what we are, separating us from our Reality in Love’s oneness. But the body is wholly neutral with no meaning of its own.

If we accept the ego’s purpose to maintain separation, the body will be sick because we are using it to support the insane mind’s belief that separation is real. If we accept the Holy Spirit’s purpose for the body, it is no longer seen as our identity. It becomes an instrument of communication in the dream of separation used to bring the message of our true Identity as God’s Son.

If we observe that our mind is harboring attack thoughts, judging or making plans against uncertainties to come, we need to remind ourselves that the body is not our identity. We are Love in the Mind of Love. With this practice we are able to live in the world without being of the world.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Way to Heaven

I will not value what is valueless.

You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. …There are no satisfactions in the world.

Today we list the real criteria by which to test all things you think you want. …it is wise to learn the laws you set in motion when you choose, and what alternatives you choose between.

Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing. Therefore, if you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from nothing, you will make the better choice.

First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away a value that is real.

[Test 2] Next, if you choose to take a thing away from someone else, you will have nothing left. This is because, when you deny his right to everything [God’s changeless Love], you have denied your own.

[Test 3]Your next consideration is the one on which the others rest. Why is the choice you make of value to you? What attracts your mind to it? What purpose does it serve?

He who would still preserve the ego’s goals and serve them as his own makes no mistakes, according to the dictates of [the ego]. This guidance teaches it is error to believe that sins are but mistakes, for who would suffer for his sins if this were so?

[Test 4] If you feel any guilt about your choice, you have allowed the ego’s goals to come between the real alternatives. And thus you do not realize there are but two, and the alternative you think you chose seems fearful, and too dangerous to be the nothingness it actually is.

Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything [all of God’s Love] and claim It as their own.” (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 133, W-pI.133.2:1-2,5;3:1,5:5-6:3;7:1-2;10:3-4;11:2-3;13:1. See also ACIM Lesson 133 Insights.)

Everything in the physical world is constantly changing. The physical universe is considered to be at least billions of years old. Yet astronomers know that the source of light from a distant star may no longer exist. Nothing in the physical universe lasts forever.

Because only the oneness of God’s Love is real, anything that is not His Love is unreal and is therefore nothing. If we attempt to keep some of His Love for ourselves alone or to take Love from a brother (judge him as unworthy), we deny Love from ourselves.

The ego belief in separation denies the oneness of Love. Judgment and guilt are the means to make separation seem real. The ego is always trying to justify guilt. Guilt demands punishment, so the ego perceives Love as a threat of punishment rather than the Source of healing that would end all guilt and return us to the awareness of Love’s eternal presence. As we lay down the nothingness of the ego’s belief in separation and open our minds to the Holy Spirit’s lessons in Love, we gain everything. We reach Heaven.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Finding Our Invulnerability

Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusions can be forgiven, and then they disappear. Forgiveness is release from all illusions, and that is why it is impossible but partly to forgive. No one who clings to one illusion can see himself as sinless, for he holds one error to himself as lovely still. And so he calls it “unforgivable,” and makes it sin. How can he then give his forgiveness wholly, when he would not receive it for himself? For it is sure he would receive it wholly the instant that he gave it so. And thus his secret guilt would disappear, forgiven by himself.

Whatever form of specialness [separation, differences] you cherish, you have made sin. Inviolate [form] stands, strongly defended with all your puny might against the Will of God. And thus [specialness] stands against yourself; your enemy, not God’s. So does it seem to split you off from God, and make you separate from Him as its defender.

It is not you who are so vulnerable and open to attack that just a word, a little whisper that you do not like, a circumstance that suits you not, or an event that you did not anticipate upsets your world, and hurls it into chaos. Truth is not frail. Illusions leave it perfectly unmoved and undisturbed. But specialness is not the truth in you. It can be thrown off balance by anything. What rests on nothing never can be stable. (A Course in Miracles, T-24.III.1:1-2:4;3:1-6. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

The perception of a world of form and differences reflects the belief in separation. Form is defined by differences. What is one can have no differences and therefore is formless. Love is one and has no form. It is uniformly the same and given to all equally.

The wish for specialness is the wish for differences. It is therefore a wish to have something other than Love. The only way to “have” special love is to make up illusions of differences. This is the world we experience with the body. Because it is all illusion, we feel vulnerable to change. There is a constant need to protect ourselves from perceived outside forces that would change the special image we have made of ourself. This need for defense is actually a defense against the Will of God. All defenses are an attempt to make separation real and are thus in opposition to the Will of God.

God Wills us all His Love, yet we fear It. We fear God because we believe that He asks us to sacrifice the image we have made of ourself. He does not oppose our wish but simply gives all of His Love without exception. We welcome His gift by forgiving ourselves for making a self-image that opposes God. As we let go of this false image with the Holy Spirit’s help, we experience the joy and peace of God’s Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Bringing Love to the World

Ultimately everyone must remember the Will of God, because ultimately everyone must recognize himself. This recognition is the recognition that his will and God’s are one. In the presence of truth, there are no unbelievers and no sacrifices. In the security of reality, fear is totally meaningless. To deny what is can only seem to be fearful. Fear cannot be real without a cause, and God is the only Cause. God is Love and you do want Him. This is your will. Ask for this and you will be answered, because you will be asking only for what belongs to you.

The fact that God is Love does not require belief, but it does require acceptance. It is indeed possible for you to deny facts, although it is impossible for you to change them. If you hold your hands over your eyes, you will not see because you are interfering with the laws of seeing. If you deny love, you will not know [love] because your cooperation is the law of its being. You cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created for you, not by you.

And if you do distort reality you will experience anxiety, depression and ultimately panic, because you are trying to make yourself unreal. When you feel these things, do not try to look beyond yourself for truth, for truth can only be within you. Say, therefore:

Christ is in me, and where He is God must be, for Christ is part of Him. (A Course in Miracles, T-9.I.9;11:5-9;14:4-7. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

If change is possible, harm is possible. We were created in a changeless Universe of Love. This changelessness guarantees our protection from harm. This is our Home, where we are guaranteed our safety and fear is impossible.

The presence of fear is a sure sign that we believe we are not at Home and are separate from the safety of God’s Love. We believe our will is to be in this loveless place, unprotected by God’s Love. Yet what has no opposite could never exist in Reality. Thus we are blind to the Love that is ours by God’s Will and think we have a will that opposes God’s.

This “will” imagines a world that pictures separation, seeming to make it real. This world could never be in truth. Though we seem to exist in a fearful, changing world, the truth of our unity with God remains within us. It is this Truth within that we must seek if we would free ourselves from the mistaken belief in being separate.

Let us pause frequently today and go within to the peaceful place where our true Self abides. Here we will be reminded that we are safe at Home in Love. Then let us bring this remembrance to the world. From this place we see the Christ in everyone.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Gift That Gives Back

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind.

Here is the answer! Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within? Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive.

God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 122, W-pI.122.1;3:1-2;6:1-4;7:6. See also ACIM Lesson 122 Insights.)

The veil that hides the face of Christ is our belief that we are alone and separate from God and every brother. This sense of separateness perceives a world of separation that cannot see the oneness of Love that is everywhere. Forgiveness is the means for letting go of the false belief in separation.

Separation is maintained by judgment which keeps sense of separation from what is judged. Each time we forgive a judgment, we remove a thread from the veil of separation. We make way for the vision of Christ to show us the oneness of Love that has always been our Home.

When we forgive, we give ourselves a gift that welcomes true Vision. We are healed of false perception and receive God’s gifts of all that is real. Today we accept the Holy Spirit’s help to forgive and be forgiven.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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An Essential Lesson to Awaken

To give is to receive. Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone, and see how quickly peace returns to us. Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us, and we can see.

So we begin the practice periods with the instruction for today, and say:

To give and to receive are one in truth.
I will receive what I am giving now.

Then close your eyes, and for five minutes think of what you would hold out to everyone, to have it yours. You might, for instance, say:

To everyone I offer quietness.
To everyone I offer peace of mind.
To everyone I offer gentleness.

Say each one slowly and then pause a while, expecting to receive the gift you gave. And it will come to you in the amount in which you gave it. You will find you have exact return, for that is what you asked. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 108, W-pI.108.7:3-9:3. See also ACIM Lesson 108 Insights.)

In the dream world of separation, it is impossible for giving to appear to be the same as receiving. Everything in the dream of separation has limits. It is limited by shape or place or time. This exercise helps us reconnect with the oneness of our true Self. We remain one with God/Love. Love has no limit. It is eternally giving and receiving, for Love gives only to Itself.

To know the Love we are, we cannot limit It in any way, for that would be attempting to change Love. When we try to do this, we lose awareness of what Love is. We cannot give Love to some and not to others and know Love. By practicing offering the attributes of Love to others, such as gentleness, kindness and peace, we learn by experience that what we offer comes back to us. This is an essential lesson that teaches us of our oneness in Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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