Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Escape from Fear and Guilt

We said that prayer is always for yourself, and this is so. Why, then, should you pray for others at all? And if you should, how should you do it? Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to recognize it is not he who is hurting you. The poisonous thought that he is your enemy, your evil counterpart, your nemesis, must be relinquished before you can be saved from guilt. For this the means is prayer, of rising power and with ascending goals, until it reaches even up to God.”

The earlier forms of prayer, at the bottom of the ladder, will not be free from envy and malice. They call for vengeance, not for love. Nor do they come from one who understands that they are calls for death, made out of fear by those who cherish guilt. They call upon a vengeful god, and it is he who seems to answer them. Hell cannot be asked for another, and then escaped by him who asks for it. Only those who are in hell can ask for hell. Those who have been forgiven, and who accepted their forgiveness, could never make a prayer like that.

At these levels, then, the learning goal must be to recognize that prayer will bring an answer only in the form in which the prayer was made. This is enough. From here it will be an easy step to the next levels. The next ascent begins with this:

What I have asked for for my brother is not what I would have. Thus have I made of him my enemy.

It is apparent that this step cannot be reached by anyone who sees no value or advantage to himself in setting others free. This may be long delayed, because it may seem to be dangerous instead of merciful. To the guilty there seems indeed to be a real advantage in having enemies, and this imagined gain must go, if enemies are to be set free. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.III.1-3)

Our desires are prayers. A desire for anything in the world is a desire for a substitute for God. If we accept a substitute, we become unaware of God. We become unaware of Love. This is why the Course calls the world a loveless place.

When we wish for a special relationship, someone who will meet our perceived needs in the world, we are really seeking an enemy. For any substitute for God is an “enemy” of Love. Love knows no enemies, for it is one. But the ego is afraid of Love and sees Love as its nemesis. It knows that if we accept Love as it is, the ego would cease to seem to exist.

To become aware of the peace and Love that is already given us, we need to let go of our desires for substitutes. We need to learn that no substitute will ever satisfy us. Any thing, circumstance or relationship that seems to bring us happiness can turn in an instant to pain and fear. This is because nothing in the world is true. Truth alone is changeless Love. Here, in Truth, is our eternal peace and happiness. The relinquishment of our beliefs that anything in the world offers anything we truly want is essential for us to find the peace of God.

The daily practice of asking for the Holy Spirit’s vision to replace our perceptions in the world will lead us up the ladder of prayer to the increasing experience of peace and happiness. The pain of fear and guilt will fade and be replaced by the awareness of the Love and peace that is our inheritance.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Ladder to True Forgiveness

Prayer is a ladder reaching up to Heaven. At the top there is a transformation much like your own, for prayer is part of you. The things of earth are left behind, all unremembered. There is no asking, for there is no lack. Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible. The light no longer flickers, and will never go out. Now, without needs of any kind, and clad forever in the pure sinlessness that is the gift of God to you, His Son, prayer can again become what it was meant to be. For now it rises as a song of thanks to your Creator, sung without words, or thoughts, or vain desires, unneedful now of anything at all. So it extends, as it was meant to do. And for this giving God Himself gives thanks.

God is the goal of every prayer, giving it timelessness instead of end. Nor has it a beginning, because the goal has never changed. Prayer in its earlier forms is an illusion, because there is no need for a ladder to reach what one has never left. Yet prayer is part of forgiveness as long as forgiveness, itself an illusion, remains unattained. Prayer is tied up with learning until the goal of learning has been reached. And then all things will be transformed together, and returned unblemished into the Mind of God. Being beyond learning, this state cannot be described. The stages necessary to its attainment, however, need to be understood, if peace is to be restored to God’s Son, who lives now with the illusion of death and the fear of God. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.II.7-8)

The ego is terrified of Love (God). The acceptance of Love’s oneness would drive the ego’s belief in separation from our holy minds. The seeming split caused by the ego’s denial of God’s Love would disappear and our perception of the dream of separation would dissolve into the experience of the peace and joy of God’s unified, eternal Love. This is the replacement of the lies of the ego with the eternal Truth that has never changed. It is our return Home to Love.

While we remain engaged in the dream world, we need a path that leads us out of our mistaken beliefs. Prayer is a means for asking for help to let go of our belief in what could never be true. When we ask for help to see with Christ’s vision, we are asking for forgiveness. We are asking for release from judgment and guilt. Each circumstance, relationship or perception that we bring to our true Self, the Christ in us, with willingness to change our perception, is a step toward true forgiveness. The separate identity we believe we are cannot help us find the way. True prayer expresses our willingness to see beyond our divided perceptions and see the innocent face of Christ instead.

This is a journey of daily practice, for we have spent our lives trying to hide from our guilt and fear. Each time we practice the prayer of joining in Christ, another layer of self-condemnation is released. That release may appear to be forgiveness of what someone else is believed to have done. Or it may be recognized as forgiveness of our own mistaken belief. These two are in fact the same. When we join with the Christ in our brother, we are accepting the one Mind that joins us in Love. This is the Holy Spirit’s use of time.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Freeing Ourselves from the Ego’s Limitations

At this level [asking-out-of-need] also comes that curious contradiction in terms known as “praying for one’s enemies.” The contradiction lies not in the actual words, but rather in the way in which they are usually interpreted. While you believe you have enemies, you have limited prayer to the laws of this world, and have also limited your ability to receive and to accept to the same narrow margins. And yet, if you have enemies you have need of prayer, and great need, too. What does the phrase really mean? Pray for yourself, that you may not seek to imprison Christ and thereby lose the recognition of your own Identity. Be traitor to no one, or you will be treacherous to yourself.

An enemy is the symbol of an imprisoned Christ. And who could [Christ] be except yourself? The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom. Now it is no longer a contradiction in terms. It has become a statement of the unity of Christ and a recognition of [Christ’s] sinlessness. And now [prayer for enemies] has become holy, for it acknowledges the Son of God as he was created.

Let it never be forgotten that prayer at any level is always for yourself. If you unite with anyone in prayer, you make him part of you. The enemy is you, as is the Christ. Before it can become holy, then, prayer becomes a choice. You do not choose for another. You can but choose for yourself. Pray truly for your enemies, for herein lies your own salvation. Forgive them for your sins, and you will be forgiven indeed. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.II.4-6)

Despite the appearance that we exist in a world which we have no control over, everything we perceive is a projection from our mind. This is why that to pray for an enemy we must pray for forgiveness of ourselves. The “enemy” is only a projection of our own belief in guilt.

Until we fully accept that we were created as Christ, God’s holy Son, our perceived world will be populated with adversaries. We can continue to do battle with our adversaries and stay bound to the ego thought system. Or we can use these perceptions as reminders to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to let go of our mistaken belief that we are separate and disconnected from God’s Love.

The Holy Spirit will help us join with the Christ in our brother which is eternally united with the Christ in ourselves. It is a joining in the one Self that God created as His Son. This is the prayer that will set us free of the ego’s limitations and return us to our Home in God.

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