Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Replacing the Illusion of Death with Eternal Life

Comparison must be an ego device, for love makes none. Specialness always makes comparisons. It is established by a lack seen in another, and maintained by searching for, and keeping clear in sight, all lacks it can perceive. This does it seek, and this it looks upon. And always whom it thus diminishes would be your savior, had you not chosen to make of him a tiny measure of your specialness instead. Against the littleness you see in him you stand as tall and stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied, by comparison with what you see. Nor do you understand it is yourself that you diminish thus.

Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of peace. Who can attack his savior [every brother] and cut him down, yet recognize his strong support? Who can detract from his omnipotence, yet share his power? And who can use him as the gauge of littleness, and be released from limits? You have a function in salvation. Its pursuit will bring you joy. But the pursuit of specialness must bring you pain. Here is a goal that would defeat salvation, and thus run counter to the Will of God. To value specialness is to esteem an alien will to which illusions of yourself are dearer than the truth.

The key you threw away God gave your brother, whose holy hands would offer it to you when you were ready to accept His plan for your salvation in the place of yours. How could this readiness be reached save through the sight of all your misery, and the awareness that your plan has failed, and will forever fail to bring you peace and joy of any kind? Through this despair you travel now, yet it is but illusion of despair. The death of specialness is not your death, but your awaking into life eternal. You but emerge from an illusion of what you are to the acceptance of yourself as God created you. (A Course in Miracles, T-24.II.1-2;14. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego uses comparison to make differences and separation seem real. Love makes no comparisons because it is one. There is no “other” to compare with. The ego is dedicated to comparing because its seeming existence depends on it.

We have been given another way of seeing that dissolves the ego’s illusions. Christ’s vision sees with the eyes of Love. This is a vision in our mind that overlooks the ego’s images of separation and sees only Love. We free ourselves to be the Love we were created to be by giving our attention to the vision of Love in our minds. This vision shows us God’s peace and joy and recognizes that this peace and joy are ours.

We were created as Love by Love. As we use Christ’s vision when we look upon our brother, he becomes our savior because he shows us the Love we were created to be. Love always joins with Love. Separation and comparison disappear. In the unity of Love, we know that we are one with our Creator, at Home in Heaven.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Laying Aside the Ego’s Voice

If you will lay aside the ego’s voice, however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts that give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind, that has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.

Hear and be silent. He would speak to you. He comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those you ever dreamed or wished for in your dreams. His miracles are true. They will not fade when dreaming ends. They end the dream instead; and last forever, for they come from God to His dear Son, whose other name is you. Prepare yourself for miracles today. Today allow your Father’s ancient pledge to you and all your brothers to be kept. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 106, W-pI.106.1;4:2-9. See also ACIM Lesson 106 Insights.)

The ACIM Text says that the ego always speaks first (T-6.IV.1:2). Today we are given a lesson on how to not listen to the ego’s voice. We need to be willing to lay aside that voice which offers us false hopes and thoughts of fear and guilt. We need to remember that if we are not in peace, we are listening to the ego’s voice. It is time to lay it aside and welcome the Holy Spirit’s Voice by allowing God’s peace to come up from deep within us. In peace we hear His Voice which offers us the means to see that only Love is real.

As we practice stepping back and listening for the Voice of truth, we will be lovingly and gently led to receive God’s gifts of Love, peace and happiness in place of the ego’s gifts of fear, conflict and loneliness. This practice is a gift we give ourselves and all the world. For when we accept the Holy Spirit’s gifts, they extend through us to the world. These gifts are magnified a thousand fold by those who have joined with us in their minds by stepping back and welcoming God’s gifts. This practice accepts the gift of freedom and leads us Home to Heaven.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning the Laws of Love

There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

How foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer! Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way to his release? You love me, Father. You could never leave me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty. How could I think that Love has left Itself? There is no will except the Will of Love. Fear is a dream, and has no will that can conflict with Yours. Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening. Death is illusion; life, eternal truth. There is no opposition to Your Will. There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

Forgiveness shows us that God’s Will is One, and that we share it. Let us look upon the holy sights forgiveness shows today, that we may find the peace of God. Amen. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 331, W-pII.331. See also ACIM Lesson 331 Insights.)

The experience of fear, guilt, pain, loss and a sense of isolation are sure signs that we are dreaming of a false reality. Our belief in the dream makes it seem real. Yet while we dream, we are surrounded by the changeless, eternal universe of Love. But we are not aware of the eternal Reality beyond the dream.

To know Reality, we need only awaken from the dream and we will remember the certainty of our Being in Love that never changed. God placed the Call to awaken in our minds the moment we accepted the dream. It is this Call that insures we are not lost in the dream of fear forever. We have the means to awaken in our mind now. We accept this means by be willing to pause and let the peace of God in us come forth into our awareness.

In this peace God’s Voice will teach us to sort the false thoughts of the ego from God’s Thoughts of Love. Our inner Teacher will help us learn to let go of the false by recognizing that what is false is really nothing; it cannot harm us or limit us in truth. As we learn these lessons in the laws of Love, we recognize that our will is united with God’s Will. We feel the Love of God within us. With each lesson in Love learned, fear diminishes and is replaced by happiness and peace.

Today we choose to pause for peace and welcome the Holy Spirit’s lessons in forgiveness that we may remember Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Letting Love Guide Us Always

All healing is release from the past. That is why the Holy Spirit is the only Healer. He teaches that the past does not exist, a fact which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore no one in the world can know.

His message speaks of timelessness in time, and that is why Christ’s vision looks on everything with love. Yet even Christ’s vision is not His reality. The golden aspects of reality that spring to light under His loving gaze are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them.

This is the miracle of creation; that it is one forever. Every miracle you offer to the Son of God is but the true perception of one aspect of the whole. Though every aspect is the whole, you cannot know this until you see that every aspect is the same, perceived in the same light and therefore one. Everyone seen without the past thus brings you nearer to the end of time by bringing healed and healing sight into the darkness, and enabling the world to see. For light must come into the darkened world to make Christ’s vision possible even here. Help Him to give His gift of light to all who think they wander in the darkness, and let Him gather them into His quiet sight that makes them one. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.VIII.1:1-3;4:4-5:6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

It is helpful to realize that in this world it is impossible to know that the past does not exist. The foundation of everything in this world is the belief there really is a past. The Answer to our choice to believe in the past is the Holy Spirit. His function is to help us see beyond appearances of separation to the eternal Presence of Love with Christ’s vision.

As we practice stepping back from our perceptions and accepting Christ’s vision in their place, we learn True Perception. True Perception shows us the Love that is the truth in every brother. At first, we learn to apply Christ’s vision to the appearance of an individual. Then we apply it to another and another.

Each time we experience this healing vision, our perception of everyone becomes more free of illusions from the past. With practice, the individual lessons learned generalize. We more easily see the unified, eternal Love beyond appearances in the world. The Light of Love becomes our preferred Guide in place of the darkness of the ego’s denial of the Light.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Remembering the Love We Are

You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. Is it your decision to do so? You recognize from your own experience that what you see in dreams you think is real while you are asleep. Yet the instant you waken you realize that everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all. You do not think this strange, even though all the laws of what you awaken to were violated while you slept. Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really waking?

Would you bother to reconcile what happened in conflicting dreams, or would you dismiss both together if you discovered that reality is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake. When you hear the Holy Spirit you may feel better because loving then seems possible to you, but you do not remember yet that [loving] once was so. And it is in this remembering that you will know [loving] can be so again. What is possible has not yet been accomplished. Yet what has once been is so now, if it is eternal. When you remember [awaken], you will know that what you remember is eternal, and therefore is now.” (A Course in Miracles, T-10.I.2-3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The world we experience through the body is unreliable. We may have circumstances we like but we cannot count on them lasting. Things seemingly beyond our control can happen that threaten the happiness we seek. This changeability is a telltale sign that what we are experiencing is a dream.

Truth is eternal and changeless. What changes cannot be real. The comparison of what we experience in the world with dreaming helps us see that there is an alternative. We are not stuck in the dream but can awaken to the eternal Love that we are in God. To awaken we need to recognize we are dreaming.

As we practice asking the Holy Spirit for His interpretation of our perceptions, with willingness to exchange His for ours, we learn to let go of the dream that truly offers us nothing that we really want. We want the peace of God. We want to experience the joy that comes with being and extending God’s Love.

Today let us be vigilant for Love. Let us practice in our experiences throughout the day pausing and asking for help to see as Love sees. Let us practice answering calls for Love with Love. This practice will bring Light into our dream and lead us to awaken to the fact that in truth we are already eternally Home in God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Changeless Love We Are

We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness that we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them.

This does Atonement teach, and demonstrates the Oneness of God’s Son is unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is. Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this that we are asked to do. It is but this that we will do today.

I will accept Atonement for myself,
For I remain as God created me.

We have not lost the knowledge that God gave to us when He created us like Him. We can remember it for everyone, for in creation are all minds as one. And in our memory is the recall how dear our brothers are to us in truth, how much a part of us is every mind, how faithful they have really been to us, and how our Father’s Love contains them all. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 139,W-pI.139.9-10;11:3-6. See also ACIM Lesson 139 Insights.)

We were created as perfect Love. What we are is as changeless as the Love that created us. The truth in us sees only truth everywhere, for what is not true does not exist. Thus the Love we are sees only Love.

Our experience in the world of fear and guilt, conflict, lack, loss and lovelessness is just a false belief, a made up identity. This experience is just role playing, a game of make-believe. We have become so engrossed in this fanciful game that we now believe it is reality. Belief makes experience but it does not change Reality. It is this fact that guarantees we can escape from the game of separation and return to the joy of our true Nature.

We can return to remembering we are the Love of God that we never truly left. When we affirm that we want to accept the Atonement for ourselves, we are claiming truth and undoing the belief in the lie of separation.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Exchanging Guilt for Eternal Joy

Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you are in time. Yet your election is both free and alterable. You do not belong in time. Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever.

Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will be like the past. This is the ego’s continuity. [Guilt] gives the ego a false sense of security by believing that you cannot escape from it. But you can and must. God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. My role is only to unchain your will and set it free. Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose it at every possible moment and in every possible way. And as [the ego’s] maker, you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it.

Remember the Kingdom always, and remember that you who are part of the Kingdom cannot be lost. The Mind that was in me is in you, for God creates with perfect fairness [equality]. Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His fairness, and let me teach you how to share [equality] with your brothers. (A Course in Miracles, T-5.VI.1:3-3:3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Guilt is what makes the world seem to spin in time. It makes the past seem real and capable of having an effect on the future. If guilt is real, then retaliation or abandonment must follow in the future and fear is justified. This is accepted as reality in the world. We do not question the basic premise this “reality” is based on — the belief that separation is real.

But this belief is untrue and therefore our experience of a world of separation and guilt is not real. This is the message the Holy Spirit was given us to teach us that we remain at one in the eternal, changeless Mind of God. As we accept His lessons, we exchange “guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace.” We accept our true Will, which we share with God and all our brothers equally.

Today we practice accepting the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of all our perceptions that we may learn to exchange the ego’s “will” for God’s Will.

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