Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Law That Guarantees Freedom from the Ego

Ideas leave not their source. The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its central­ity in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God.

The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all. It cannot change what is its waking state. It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical. What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep.

What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 167, W-pI.167.3:6-11;6;9. See also ACIM Lesson 167 Insights.)

In the dreams we experience while the body sleeps, we are unaware of the world we experience when the body is awake. But the body itself is just an image in another dream of time and space, separate from the eternal reality of Love’s oneness.

The images of the world seem so vivid and solid that we believe they are real. This is the ego’s slight of hand to convince us that separation is real. But the ego itself is only a thought of being separate. All the ego’s thoughts remain part of the thought system of separation, because thoughts cannot leave their source nor have attributes different from their source.

This is good news. It means that the ego’s illusionary thoughts have no effect whatsoever on the Thought of God that created our true Self. Our true Self shares all the attributes of God because this Thought has not left Its Source. This guarantees that we remain forever united with the peace, joy and Love of God.

The purpose of the Course is to teach us that we are not the ego and do not truly want to identify with it. No matter how wild the ego’s dreams may seem, we still remain as Love created us.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to Bring Peace to the World

When you have looked upon your brother with complete forgiveness, from which no error is excluded and nothing kept hidden, what mistake can there be anywhere you cannot overlook? What form of suffering could block your sight, preventing you from seeing past it? And what illusion could there be you will not recognize as a mistake; a shadow through which you walk completely undismayed? God would let nothing interfere with those whose wills are His, and they will recognize their wills are His, because they serve His Will. And serve it willingly. And could remembrance of what they are be long delayed?

You will see your value through your brother’s eyes, and each one is released as he beholds his savior in place of the attacker who he thought was there. Through this releasing is the world released. This is your part in bringing peace. (A Course in Miracles, T-22.VI.7:1-8:3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Complete forgiveness brings peace to the world. This is why forgiveness is our only function. Judgment always brings conflict with it because it is based on the belief in being separate. Conflict is impossible in what is one and the same throughout. There are no differences in God nor His Son, Who remains forever one with Him.

For forgiveness to be complete, we must relinquish all our judgments to the Holy Spirit. He will judge truly on our behalf. The Holy Spirit’s judgment sees all things as real or unreal, Love or a call for Love. There is no other choice. From our perspective as a separate identity, our judgments are based on the false premise that separation is real. These judgments will always be wrong because they are based on a lie.

Today we do our part to bring peace to the world by putting Holy Spirit in charge of all our interpretations. Thus we will recognize illusions for what they are and look past them. We will learn to recognize Love and calls for Love. With this clear vision, we will be messengers of Love and peace in the world.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to Learn That We Are Only Love

…to teach is to learn, so that teacher and learner are the same. It also emphasizes that teaching is a constant process; it goes on every moment of the day, and continues into sleeping thoughts as well.

To teach is to demonstrate. There are only two thought systems, and you demonstrate [teach] that you believe one or the other is true all the time. From your demonstration others learn, and so do you. The question is not whether you will teach, for in that there is no choice. …You cannot give to someone else, but only to yourself, and this you learn through teaching. Teaching is but a call to witnesses to attest to what you believe. …Any situation must be to you a chance to teach others what you are, and what they are to you. No more than that, but also never less.

It is the teaching underlying what you say that teaches you. Teaching but reinforces what you believe about yourself. Its fundamental purpose is to diminish self-doubt. This does not mean that the self you are trying to protect is real. But it does mean that the self you think is real is what you teach. (A Course in Miracles, M-in.1:5-6;2:1-4,6-7,10-11;3:6-10)

In every moment, we teach (demonstrate) what we believe is true. When we are disturbed by a situation or the actions of someone, we teach ourselves that we are vulnerable and separate. This is because we are believing in a false identity that is separate and alone, at the mercy of outside forces beyond our control. This is the condition of everyone in the world while they believe they are a body with a separate identity.

The Course is teaching us that we are not separate; we are not a body. This is the thought reversal that will free us from the world of fear and guilt. Only bodies seem to hurt or be harmed. As we disconnect our identity from the body and accept our one Self, we free ourselves from fear and guilt. Our true Self is Love and nothing else. Because Love is one, it cannot harm or be harmed. It shares the eternal innocence of our Creator.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit to guide our thoughts that we may teach only Love and learn that we are only Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Healing Through Seeing Truly

You cannot forget the Father because I am with you, and I cannot forget Him. To forget me is to forget yourself and Him Who created you. Our brothers are forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of me and of Him Who created me. Through this remembrance, you can change their minds about themselves, as I can change yours. Your mind is so powerful a light that you can look into [their minds] and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours. … want to share my mind with you because we are of one Mind, and that Mind is ours. See only this Mind everywhere, because only this is everywhere and in everything. It is everything because it encompasses all things within itself. Blessed are you who perceive only this, because you perceive only what is true.

Come therefore unto me, and learn of the truth in you. The mind we share is shared by all our brothers, and as we see them truly they will be healed. Let your mind shine with mine upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them make them aware of the light in them. This light will shine back upon you and on the whole Sonship, because this is your proper gift to God. He will accept it and give it to the Sonship, because it is acceptable to Him and therefore to His Sons. This is true communion with the Holy Spirit, Who sees the altar of God in everyone, and by bringing it to your appreciation, He calls upon you to love God and His creation. You can appreciate the Sonship only as one. This is part of the law of creation, and therefore governs all thought. (A Course in Miracles, T-7.V.10:1-6,9-12;11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

When we remember that only Love is real, we see only Love. There is nothing else to see. The singular purpose of our life is to remember and see only Love. This dispels the ego’s denial of Love.

While we identify with a separate self image, we need help to let go of thoughts of separation. This Help is eternally with us in our mind. It is both the Voice for God and the Voice for our one Self, for this Self and God are one. The more we practice paying attention to this Voice, the ego’s voice recedes more and more into the background. The ego’s voice seems loud only because of our allegiance to it.

If we want to find peace and happiness, we must redirect our allegiance to the Voice of our one Self. This is what it means to be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. Our allegiance to the oneness of Love welcomes Its Light and shines away the dark thoughts of the ego which fade into the nothingness from which they came.

Let us join together in declaring our allegiance to the Voice of Love that we may remember only Love is real.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Remembering Our Unity in Love

God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Father’s Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it.

God’s Name can not be heard without response, nor said with­out an echo in the mind that calls you to remember. Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness.

Sit silently, and let His Name become the all-encompassing idea that holds your mind com­pletely. Let all thoughts be still except this one. And to all other thoughts respond with this, and see God’s Name replace the thousand little names you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is one Name for all there is, and all that there will be. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 183, W-pI.183.1-2;8:3-5. See also ACIM Lesson 183 Insights.)

A name is a label we give to something we want to identify. The meaning we give the name is what gives it its identity in our mind. “Chair” is a name which brings meanings to our mind from our past. Saying the Name of God brings His meaning to our mind, not from the past of our body, but from before time. It reminds us of our Creation by Love and in Love.

Because we were created as an extension of Love, the Name of God reminds us of our own Identity as Love. Repeating God’s Name reminds us of the changeless, universal Love and eternal peace we are. The word we use for the Name of God does not matter. It is the meaning we give It that calls us to remember we are His Son, Love’s extension, eternally. All that God is, we are, for He created us one with Him.

We repeat God’s name today to remember that we are Love and nothing else, for only Love is real.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Role of Judgment in Mind Healing

We said before that the Holy Spirit is evaluative, and must be. He sorts out the true from the false in your mind, and teaches you to judge every thought you allow to enter it in the light of what God put there. Whatever is in accord with this light He retains, to strengthen the Kingdom in you. What is partly in accord with it He accepts and purifies. But what is out of accord entirely He rejects by judging against. This is how He keeps the Kingdom perfectly consistent and perfectly unified. Remember, however, that what the Holy Spirit rejects the ego accepts. This is because they are in fundamental disagreement about everything, being in fundamental disagreement about what you are. The ego’s beliefs on this crucial issue vary, and that is why it promotes different moods. The Holy Spirit never varies on this point, and so the one mood He engenders is joy. He protects it by rejecting everything that does not foster joy, and so He alone can keep you wholly joyous.

In the mind of the thinker, [the Holy Spirit] is judgmental, but only in order to unify the mind so it can perceive without judgment. This enables the mind to teach without judgment, and therefore to learn to be without judgment. The undoing is necessary only in your mind, so that you will not project, instead of extend. (A Course in Miracles, T-6.V.C.1;2:3-5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego established judgment as a tool to maintain the appearance of separation. But all judgments directed by the ego are projections of what we believe is true about ourselves. Being projections, the ego’s judgments appear to be about something outside ourselves. But projections always have a source, which is beliefs held in the mind that projects. Thus any judgment of an “other” is also a judgment against the ego self that is projecting. This process keeps the ego in place, for it retains the guilt in the mind that projects.

The Holy Spirit gives judgment a difference purpose. He uses it to undo the ego thought system. The ego’s judgment is always based on the simple evaluation of whether or not it is real. Only Love is real. A thought that is not an extension of Love is not real and therefore of the ego. If we let Him, He will help us purify our thoughts by showing us what is real and what is not real.

As we accept His lessons and learn to distinguish between real and unreal, we undo the ego. Thoughts recognized as unreal are freely dismissed as meaningless. Sometimes our thoughts are a mixture that partially extend Love but include remnants of belief in separation. The Holy Spirit purifies these thoughts by dismissing the unreal and bringing fully into our awareness the reality of Love.

Our role in awakening to Love’s reality is to put the Holy Spirit in charge of evaluating all our thoughts. The purified thoughts He returns to us will guide us in being truly helpful by extending Love in the world in forms that bless and heal.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Miracle Frees Us from the Ego’s Dream

…in forgiving dreams is no one asked to be the victim and the sufferer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for your own. It does not ask you make another [dream]; only that you see you made the one you would exchange for this.

The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of [dream] when he perceives he made them up. The fear was held in place because he did not see that he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream. He gives himself the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother.

This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. [Miracles] are the glad effects of taking back the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body is released because the mind acknowledges “this is not done to me, but I am doing this.” And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and all the dreaming of the world undone. (A Course in Miracles, T-28.II.5:6-7;7:1-5;12. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

When we dream at night, it seems as though we have nothing to do with the dream we experience. Yet it is possible to become aware that we are the dreamer and with that awareness, change the dream. This is called lucid dreaming, which can be used as a tool to heal unconscious fears and guilt.

The Course tells us that what we experience in the world when the body is awake is just as much a dream as our nighttime dreams. It also tells us that we can become aware that we are dreaming when we seem to be in a body walking about in a world of other bodies. This lucidity is key to the healing of our mind because it puts us in control of the dream.

Our dreams are no longer frightening when we realize that we can change them because we are in charge. Dreams only seem to happen to us because we have accepted the ego’s image of our identity, which denies our eternal unity with God’s Love.

Fear, Love’s opposite, is always at the core of the ego’s dreams. But we can change our mind about our identity. We can choose to identify with our true Self, God’s Son, Love’s extension. Because we have become so entranced with the ego’s dream, we need a means to step back from it. This is the miracle, given to us when we are willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s vision of Love’s innocence. This vision shows us our true Identity. We no longer identify with our body as our identity and remember that we are not the victim of outside forces. We recognize the dream of separation has no effects. We choose the Identity of our true Self as perfect Love, safe in the heart of God.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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