Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Bridge to Our True Self

“The bridge [to the real world] itself is nothing more than a transition in the perspective of reality. On this side, everything you see is grossly distorted and completely out of perspective. What is little and insignificant is magnified, and what is strong and powerful cut down to littleness. In the transition there is a period of confusion, in which a sense of actual disorientation may occur. But fear it not, for it means only that you have been willing to let go your hold on the distorted frame of reference that seemed to hold your world together. This frame of reference is built around the special relationship. Without this illusion there could be no meaning you would still seek here.

“Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality. Time is kind, and if you use it on behalf of reality, it will keep gentle pace with you in your transition. The urgency is only in dislodging your mind from its fixed position here. This will not leave you homeless and without a frame of reference. The period of disorientation, which precedes the actual transition, is far shorter than the time it took to fix your mind so firmly on illusions. Delay will hurt you now more than before, only because you realize it is delay, and that escape from pain is really possible. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this: You could not long find even the illusion of love in any special relationship here. For you are no longer wholly insane, and you would soon recognize the guilt of self-betrayal for what it is.”

“Whenever your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still attracts you, enter with [the Holy Spirit] into a holy instant, and there let Him release you. He needs only your willingness to share His perspective to give it to you completely.” (A Course in Miracles, T-16.VI.7-8;12:1-2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

When we seek a special relationship, we are betraying our Self. It begins with perceiving ourself as incomplete and seeks to complete this self by seeking to find completion from an external source. It could be called a double betrayal. First we betray our Self by denying the limitless Love we are. We further betray the oneness of our Self by believing in a world of separation. Whenever we follow the ego’s guidance, we are reinforcing this betrayal and increasing the guilt that is betrayal’s companion.

The way out of this vicious cycle is to let the Holy Spirit guide our perceptions. He will patiently lead us to see past the appearances of separation to the oneness of Love that surrounds us and is in us. In the holy instant, we are bridged from the limitation of the ego to the perception of the real world, where illusions are forgiven and we see our brothers as part of the one Self we were created to be. When our forgiveness is complete, we have accepted our one Self and remember our completion in God.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Claiming the Power of Love in Us

I am one Self, united with my Creator.

Today’s idea accurately describes you as God created you. You are one within yourself, and one with Him. Yours is the unity of all creation. Your perfect unity makes change in you impossible. You do not accept this, and you fail to realize it must be so, only because you believe that you have changed yourself already.

You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God’s creation; weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of yourself; a self divided into many war­ring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray. It does not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. It does not see the oneness in you, for it is blind. It does not understand you are the Son of God, for it is senseless and understands nothing.

You have seen the extent of your lack of mental discipline, and of your need for mind training. It is necessary that you be aware of this, for [your lack of mental discipline] is indeed a hindrance to your advance.

…you have not yet formed the habit of using the idea, “I am one Self, united with my Creator,” as an automatic response to temptation.

Assure yourself:

I am one Self, united with my Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 95, W-pI.95.1-2;4:4-5;5:3;11:2. See also ACIM Lesson 95 Insights.)

This passage makes it clear that identifying with the ego as our self is not in our best interests. The consequences of this misidentification are not what we really want. We want to experience the peace of God. We want to know that we are safe, protected by the eternal Love of God. We want to feel the joy of the limitless flow of Love that unifies us with every brother and with our Creator.

Let’s join together hourly in remembering the one Self we are, united with our Creator, limitless in the power of Love, free to be as Love created us.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Listening to the Voice of Truth

God’s peace and joy are mine.

Today I will accept God’s peace and joy, in glad ex­change for all the substitutes that I have made for happiness and peace.

Let me be still and listen to the truth.

Let my own feeble voice be still, and let me hear the mighty Voice for Truth Itself assure me that I am God’s perfect Son. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 118, W-pI.118.1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 118 Insights.)

Everyone wants peace and happiness. It’s available to us in every instant, but we must listen to the Voice of Truth instead of the ego’s lies. To hear this Voice we must be willing to be still and listen. This means we must pause and disconnect from the ego’s chatter. In our quiet mind, Truth is available to us, for we meet Its conditions. Truth is found in quietness, not in chaos.

Let us join together today in the practice of pausing and quieting our mind to listen to the Voice of Truth. In this joining, we support each other in remembering we are God’s perfect Son.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Healing the Split from Love

…when the mind is split there is a need of healing. So the Thought that has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, but failed to recognize its oneness. Now it did not know itself, and thought its own Identity was lost.

Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before it, and the memory of God not far behind.

Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. Here we share our final dream [of complete forgiveness]. It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. (A Course in Miracles 2. What Is Salvation?, W-pII.2.2:3-4:3. See also ACIM Lesson 231 Insights.)

Salvation is only needed in a dream of lack of Love. This lack is only perceived if we identify with the ego and believe in the ego’s illusions that make separation appear real. Only our active belief keeps the illusions in place. When we cease to believe illusions are real (forgive), we awaken to our true Self, eternally at Home in Love’s oneness. This undoing of our beliefs leads us Home to Love. Through forgiveness, we let go of trying to make illusions real.

We don’t need to do anything to be what Love created us to be. Our original Creation cannot change because Its Source is changeless. Love created us like Itself. It is time to stop trying to be what we are not. This “doing” brings only pain, fear and guilt. We need to let Love be Itself and learn that we are Love.

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

God’s Name [Identity] 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.

Repeat God’s Name [acknowledge His Identity], and you acknowledge Him as sole Creator of reality. And you acknowledge also that His Son is part of Him, creating in His Name. 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.183.1,8. See also ACIM Lesson 183 Insights.)

A name is a symbol or label used to identify something beyond the name itself. In the dream of separation, names are used to make things seem real because of the meaning we assign to the name. We go to school to learn the meaning of names so we can communicate with each other. We use these symbols to try to bring order to the chaotic illusions of the dream which have no meaning of their own. But this depends on our accepting and believing in the meaning given to the names.

God is the only Source of meaning because He is all that is Real. When we acknowledge His Identity, we acknowledge His meaning. And because our Identity is united with His, we acknowledge our true Self’s Identity in God. Acknowledging God’s and our own Identity reminds us that we are His Son, united with our Creator. In this acknowledgment, thoughts of separation fade and we awaken from the dream into the Reality of Love.

Today we practice acknowledging our Identity in the eternal Reality of Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Recognizing Our Dearest Friend

Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today, completed and completely. He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.

You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart’s desire. This is the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 182, W-pI.182.11-12. See also ACIM Lesson 182 Insights.)

Whenever we feel defensive, we have identified with a false image of what we are. It is a reminder to pause and step back from the perceived threat of harm or loss. Our true Self remains united with our Creator and shares all of His strength. The strength of God shields us from all harm, for nothing exists outside of God. Held safely within His Love, we can rest confidently in His sure protection. Here we are at Home.

Today we practice pausing and stepping back to remember our true Home. We remember our innocence and from that place, we see the innocence in our brothers. We see past appearances in the dream. Those we perceived as enemies are recognized as our dearest friend, for the Truth in them is united with the Truth in us as the one Self that is God’s Son.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Remembering the Love We Are

Yet what you will you do not know. This is not strange when you realize that to deny is to “not know.” God’s Will is that you are His Son. By denying this you deny your own will, and therefore do not know what [your will] is. You must ask what God’s Will is in everything, because it is yours. You do not know what it is, but the Holy Spirit remembers it for you. Ask Him, therefore, what God’s Will is for you, and He will tell you yours. It cannot be too often repeated that you do not know your will. Whenever what the Holy Spirit tells you appears to be coercive, it is only because you have not recognized your will.

You are afraid to know God’s Will, because you believe it is not yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here, because this is the belief that makes you want not to know.

Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Father is to know your own. For it is your will to be like Him, Whose Will it is that it be so. God’s Will is that His Son be One, and united with Him in His Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that your will is His. (A Course in Miracles, T-11.I.8;10:3-5;11:6-8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego is the denial of God’s Will. If we believe we are the ego, we will be afraid of God’s Will because accepting His Will would end the ego’s denial and eliminate the ego all together. That would seem like death to us if we identify with the ego.

The Course is teaching us what God’s Will is — that we be joined with Him in perfect peace, joy and unlimited Love. The ego doesn’t want this because it believes specialness is more valuable than God’s gift of all of Himself. Specialness could only be achieved if there were limits on Love so that some could have more Love than others.

Because of our fear of God’s Will, we have to be taught that the ego’s images of separation (limitation) have no meaning or value. They cannot give us what we really want. The Love we were created to be seeks only to extend Love, for that is Love’s only function. Because the ego denies that function, we are compelled to seek for the Love that seems to be missing. The ego does not know what Love is, so as long as we follow the ego’s lead, we will not find the Love we seek.

It is time to choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide. He knows the way to Love, for He remains eternally united with the Source of Love. Under His guidance, we will remember that we already are the Love we seek.

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