Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Path to Lasting Peace and Happiness

When you have learned to accept what you are [Love’s extension], you will make no more gifts to offer to yourself, for you will know you are complete, in need of nothing, and unable to accept anything for yourself [alone]. But you will gladly give, having received. The host of God need not seek to find anything.

If you are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God and unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace yourself, salvation will be given you. Yet think not you can substitute your plan for His. Rather, join with me in His, that we may release all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host to Him. Thus will we let no one forget what you would remember. And thus will you remember it.

Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him [everyone]. For where you would have your brother be, there will you think you are. Hear not his appeal to hell and littleness [separation], but only his call for Heaven and greatness [call for Love]. Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me. (A Course in Miracles, T-15.III.10:7-12:4. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Our true Self is Love, united with all in Love’s oneness. Our true Self is eternally complete, having all Love and needing nothing else because only Love is real. It is this Self we need to remember is What we are. God’s plan for our salvation, given us through the Holy Spirit, is simply to lead us out of the self-made limitations that come with belief in separation.

As we are willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we learn that no form in the world will ever bring us lasting peace and happiness. No form in the world is permanent because it is an illusion. It can seem to make us happy in the present and a moment later seem to be lost. We have given every form in the world its meaning to us. Forms have no meaning of their own.

Holy Spirit will gently, patiently and lovingly teach us to recognize that all forms have no value, no true meaning and cannot content us. As we let go of the meaning we give forms, we make way for changeless Love to fill our hearts and bring us Home to Heaven.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing the Strength of Christ in Us

Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. [Temptation] would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what [the body] orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you be this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this:

Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there. [Thinking we and our brothers are separate bodies with separate minds.]

For He has come, and He is asking this.

How do you make the choice? How easily is this explained! You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you. And what you choose is what you think is real. Simply by never using weakness to direct your actions, you have given [weakness] no power. And the light of Christ in you is given charge of everything you do. For you have brought your weakness unto Him, and He has given you His strength instead.

Learn, then, the happy habit of response to all temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:

I am as God created me. His Son can suffer nothing. And I am His Son.

Thus is Christ’s strength invited to prevail, replacing all your weakness with the strength that comes from God and that can never fail. (A Course in Miracles, T-31.VIII.1-2;5:1-5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The source of all our fear, guilt, sense of inadequacy and unworthiness comes from believing we are a body. This belief is the choice for separation instead of accepting our eternal unity with Love. Fortunately this choice is reversible. We have not lost our connection with our Source. For the moment we chose separation over God’s unity, He gave us the means to reverse the choice.

In our mind remains Christ, our unbreakable Link to our Creator. Because the light of Christ is in our mind, we can choose to let the Him direct all our choices instead of the split mind of the ego. This is the choice for the strength of God instead of the weakness of the empty image of a body that has no meaning of its own. Christ leads us away from the temptation to perceive ourselves as a body and deliver us from from the thought system of separation.

Today let us together choose to put Christ, our true Self, in charge of all our doing and thus choose His strength instead of the ego’s weakness.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Seeing as Our True Self Sees

All your relationships are blessed in the holy instant, because the blessing is not limited. In the holy instant the Sonship gains as one, and united in your blessing it becomes one to you. The meaning of love is the meaning God gave to it. Give [love] any meaning apart from His, and it is impossible to understand it. God loves every brother as He loves you; neither less nor more. He needs them all equally, and so do you. In time, you have been told to offer miracles as I direct, and let the Holy Spirit bring to you those who are seeking you. Yet in the holy instant you unite directly with God, and all your brothers join in Christ. Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares, as God shares His Self with Christ.

Think you that you can judge the Self of God? God has created It beyond judgment, out of His need to extend His Love. With love in you, you have no need except to extend it. In the holy instant there is no conflict of needs, for there is only one. For the holy instant reaches to eternity, and to the Mind of God. And it is only there love has meaning, and only there can it be understood. (A Course in Miracles, T-15.V.10-11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Christ is the Self we share with everyone. Christ’s vision sees only Itself in everyone. To know our Self, we must join with Christ’s vision and see as It sees. Being the vision of Love, Christ’s vision sees only innocence, for It sees only Love. The practice of holding our hearts and minds open to the vision of our true Self will bring us the experience of the peace and joy of God.

If we see anyone as an adversary, it is our call for Love because we are denying the oneness of Love’s presence. Feeling offended or threatened or guilty is a sign that we made to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help to rise above appearances and see only Love. Each time we accept this vision, we bring a gift to the world and to ourselves. We become a conduit for the extension of Love and the unification of the one Self we share, Christ.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Entering into Christ’s Presence

This is a day of silence and of trust. It is a special time of promise in your calendar of days. It is a time Heaven has set apart to shine upon, and cast a timeless light upon this day, when echoes of eternity are heard.

Your body will be sanctified today, its only purpose being now to bring the vision of what you experience this day to light the world. We cannot give experience like this directly. Yet it leaves a vision in our eyes which we can offer everyone, that he may come the sooner to the same experience in which the world is quietly forgot, and Heaven is remembered for a while.

As this experience increases and all goals but this become of little worth, the world to which you will return becomes a little closer to the end of time; a little more like Heaven in its ways; a little nearer its deliverance. And you who bring it light will come to see the light more sure; the vision more distinct. The time will come when you will not return in the same form in which you now appear, for you will have no need of it. Yet now it has a purpose, and will serve it well. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 157,W-pI.157.1:1-3;6-7. See also ACIM Lesson 157 Insights.)

The body is an illusion and has no meaning nor purpose of its own. It is made holy when it is given the purpose of bringing Christ’s vision to the world. As we join with our true Self in our mind, we bring Christ’s vision of innocence and oneness into the dream of separation. This practice teaches us to step back from our judgments, our guilt and our fear, and welcome the Light of Love that is in our mind eternally. As we share this Light with the world, we bring it healing as we heal our mind as well.

This is how we enter into the Presence of Christ; we enter into the Presence of our true Self. In this Presence is our joy and peace, for it places us in the Presence of God. It returns us to the Heaven that is our Home.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting Holy Spirit’s Plan for Our Happiness

Your present trust in [the Holy Spirit] is the defense that promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy that constantly increases, as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. Let no defenses but your present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only your defenses would conceal.

Without defenses, you become a light which Heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own. And it will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness according to the ancient plan, begun when time was born.

We will be sure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this today. We make no plans for how it will be done, but realize that our defenselessness is all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.

For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your [self-initiated plans]. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 135,W-pI.135.19;20:1-2;26:2. See also ACIM Lesson 135 Insights.)

When we try to make plans on our own, we call upon our experience and learning from the past as a guide to make plans that will help us have a happy and safe future. It is based on the idea that the past will repeat itself. It leaves no room for the present, which is where our true Self resides in the peace of God. Thus our self-initiated plans block us from receiving God’s gift of joy and Love that is eternally present now. These self-initiated plans are defenses against the Truth.

But we have a Guide Whose function is to lead us to the certainty of changeless Love and joy beyond description in the world. His purpose is to use our dreams for the purpose of healing the part of our mind that believes in a self separated from Love’s oneness. The Holy Spirit recognizes the illusions we believe are real but knows they are not true. He uses the illusions we believe in for the purpose of healing our mind instead of the ego’s purpose to hide from Love.

In the dream of time, plans are needed. But if we would free ourselves from the limitations of the dream, we must hold our minds open to the Holy Spirit’s plans in each moment. The more we practice asking for and accepting Holy Spirit’s plan day by day, the happier our life in the world is. We are led lovingly to remember our true Self, which is eternally present in the Heaven of God’s Love.

Today we practice pausing to receive Holy Spirit’s inspiration that we would remember the certainty of Heaven is ours.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Reclaiming Our Immortality in God

It is essential for your progress in this course that you accept today’s idea [I am not a body. I am free], and hold it very dear. Be not concerned that to the ego it is quite insane. The ego holds the body dear because it dwells in it, and lives united with the home that it has made. [The body] is a part of the illusion that has sheltered [the ego] from being found illusory itself.

The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom. In Him they have found what they have sought. The body’s purpose now is unambiguous. …Without the power to enslave, [the body] is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks.

You are God’s Son. In immortality you live forever. Would you not return your mind to this? Then practice well the thought the Holy Spirit gives you for today. Your brothers stand released with you in it; the world is blessed along with you, God’s Son will weep no more, and Heaven offers thanks for the increase of joy your practice brings even to it. And God Himself extends His Love and happiness each time you say:

I am not a body. I am free.
I hear the Voice that God has given me,
and it is only this my mind obeys. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 199,W-pI.199.3;6:1-3,6;8. See also ACIM Lesson 199 Insights.)

The immortality of God’s Love is already our true Identity as His Son. But by identifying with the ego, we have chosen to deny the Love that is our true Identity. The ego made the body as a substitute identity to imprison our mind in a dream that makes separation, limitation and lack of love seem real. It seems to achieve this purpose only because we believe in it.

The practice of today’s idea helps us disengage from our belief in the ego as our identity and focus on our true Identity in the Mind of Love. We are reclaiming our immortality in God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Distinguishing the Unreal from the Real

Appearances deceive, but can be changed. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all, and if you fail to see beyond appearances you are deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and capable of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that makes it real, and keeps it separate from all appearances. [Reality] must transcend all form to be itself. It cannot change.

Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception, both. [Changelessness] is obscured by changing views of him that you perceive as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health, his perfect freedom from all forms of lack, and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be changed.

What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? …Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but keep their unreality obscure and give to them reality instead. (A Course in Miracles, T-30.VIII.1;2:3-6;4:1,4. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Only the oneness of God’s Love is changeless. Thus only Love is real. The forms in dreams of separation are simply temptations to perceive the forms as real and not look past appearances to the changelessness of Love.

We have a simple test to discern the real from the unreal. If something can change, it is not real. Looked at honestly, the entire physical universe seen in the dream cannot be real because it is constantly changing. Today we practice distinguishing the unreal from the Real.

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