Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

Tweet

Subscribe

Click link to go to:

View all articles • Article index

Finding Certainty in Changeless Love

The overlooking of the battleground is now your purpose.

Be lifted up, and from a higher place look down upon it. From there will your perspective be quite different. Here in the midst of it, it does seem real. Here you have chosen to be part of it. Here murder [separation from Love, the Source of Life] is your choice. Yet from above, the choice is miracles [extensions of Love] instead of murder. And the perspective coming from this choice shows you the battle is not real, and easily escaped. Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless. And it is over when you realize it never was begun. How can a battle be perceived as nothingness when you engage in it?

Think what is given those who share their Father’s purpose, and who know that it is theirs. They want for nothing. Sorrow of any kind is inconceivable. Only the light they love is in awareness, and only love shines upon them forever. [Love] is their past, their present and their future; always the same, eternally complete and wholly shared. They know it is impossible their happiness could ever suffer change of any kind. Perhaps you think the battleground can offer something you can win. Can it be anything that offers you a perfect calmness, and a sense of love so deep and quiet that no touch of doubt can ever mar your certainty? And that will last forever? (A Course in Miracles, T-23.IV.4:7-5:10;8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

While we are engaged with the ego and accept its meager offering of the body as our identity, we are engaged in constant battle. This little, limited self is vulnerable and needs to be constantly defended. This sense of weakness comes from denying the invulnerability of the Life we live in Love. Our engagement with the dream makes us unaware of the strength of Love in us.

It does not seem that we have murderous thoughts, but a thought what denies Life is murder. It doesn’t seem that a minor irritation is murderous. Irritation comes from a belief that what is irritating us is separate, different and capable of hurting us. But what is not real cannot harm the Reality of the Life we live in God.

To release our engagement with the ego, we need to pause and relax. It can be helpful to visualize being lifted up so high above the world that boundaries and limitations are no longer visible. From this high vantage point, the battlegrounds in the world fade from view.

We can relax and open our minds to the Holy Spirit’s point of view. With His help we see with the eyes of Love. We feel Love’s blessing and strength comforting us and bringing us peace. We see that nothing is real except the Love that unifies us with every brother and our Creator. In this Love there can be no threats, no loss, no vulnerability; only the certainty of changeless Love.

Today we choose to rise above the battleground and accept the vision of Love.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Choosing Our Life in Love

Think not that you can set a goal unlike God’s purpose for you, and establish it as changeless and eternal. You can give yourself a purpose that you do not have. But you can not remove the power to change your mind, and see another purpose there.

Change is the greatest gift God gave to all that you would make eternal, to ensure that only Heaven would not pass away. You were not born to die. You cannot change, because your function has been fixed by God. All other goals are set in time and change that time might be preserved, excepting one. Forgiveness does not aim at keeping time, but at its ending, when it has no use. Its purpose ended, it is gone. And where it once held seeming sway is now restored the function God established for His Son in full awareness. Time can set no end to its fulfillment nor its changelessness. There is no death because the living share the function their Creator gave to them. Life’s function cannot be to die. It must be life’s extension, that it be as one forever and forever, without end.

How lovely is the world whose purpose is forgiveness of God’s Son! How free from fear, how filled with blessing and with happiness! And what a joyous thing it is to dwell a little while in such a happy place! Nor can it be forgot, in such a world, it is a little while till timelessness comes quietly to take the place of time. (A Course in Miracles, T-29.VI.3:4-4:11;6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

God gave His Son one purpose, to extend His Love. That is our only true purpose in the world. The ego, in its quest for specialness, made up an alternative to the Self that God created one with Himself. The purpose of this false self is to reinforce the belief in separation, which is necessary to support the appearance of specialness.

The ego uses numerous mechanisms to support its purpose. Perhaps the one least obvious is time. Only in time does it seems possible to have a past or future different from the present. Time provides the means to overlook the Love that is always in the present and thus supports the separation that is essential to keeping the ego as the dictator of our experience.

But we can choose to use time for a different purpose. Willingness to choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide lets Him help us use time to forgive our past and let the presence of Love in the now moment dawn upon our minds. We are free to use this purpose instead of the ego’s. We are free to choose Love instead of the guilt and fear the ego thrives on. We are free to choose the Life we live in Love instead of the ego’s wish for death.

We choose Life today by choosing to accept the Holy Spirit’s guidance in all our perceptions throughout the day. Thus we choose to be as God created us.

 

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Breaking Free from the Ego’s Dictates

All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though unrecognized, is faith in specialness. This takes many forms, but always clashes with the reality of God’s creation and with the grandeur that He gave His Son. What else could justify attack? For who could hate someone whose Self is his, and Whom he knows? Only the special could have enemies, for they are different and not the same. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and a need to judge that cannot be escaped.

Specialness is the great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is the grand illusion of what you are and what your brother is. And here is what must make the body dear and worth preserving.

Your brother is your friend because his Father created him like you. There is no difference. You have been given to your brother that love might be extended, not cut off from him. What you keep is lost to you. God gave you and your brother Himself, and to remember this is now the only purpose that you share. And so it is the only one you have. (A Course in Miracles, T-24.I.3;5:1-3;7:1-6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

As long as we believe we are a body we will make wrong decisions. The body is the ego’s central image of specialness. It is what appears to make our self unique, different from everybody and every thing. Under the ego’s dictates, we will defend the body and our special identity at all costs, even unto death. While we identify with the body we will perceive our brother as a body, separate from us. We will not perceive him as he is—part of our one Self, united with us as God’s Son.

The ego always judges to maintain the illusion of differences, of specialness. It engages in constantly categorizing our brother according to how the body appears, what it does and says. These categories are established by “memories” of past experiences used to judge good or bad, helpful of harmful, friend or foe. It judgments are never based on the present, because the ego is unaware of the presence of eternal Love.

To free ourselves from the ego’s dictates, we must choose to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead. By practicing frequent pausing to welcome the peace of God within our mind, we make way for the Holy Spirit’s true perception to replace the false perceptions of the ego. This is a practice that will lead us Home to the Heaven of God’s Love. We will learn to the truth in our brother as our Friend.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Letting Love Guide Our Thoughts

All things I think I see reflect ideas.

This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.

Our Father, Your ideas reflect the truth, and mine apart from Yours but make up dreams. Let me behold what only [Your ideas] reflect, for Yours and Yours alone establish truth. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 325, W-pII.325. See also ACIM Lesson 325 Insights.)

This lesson spells out the process of projection. It is why we see a world of fear, sickness and death. This is what the ego wants to see because it maintains the belief that the ego’s idea of separation from God is real. Its an insane idea that leads to the projection of an insane world. The insane cannot recognize reality, for what is perceived as real blocks awareness of Reality.

In every instant we have a choice. We can continue to pledge our allegiance to the ego’s insane idea. Or we can choose to accept God’s Idea that extends Love without limit, indivisible and continuing unchanged forever. God’s idea brings with it His Love, peace and joy.

Each time we let Love guide our thoughts, we perceive Love in the world. We see Love’s invulnerability to harm. Nothing can change the Son God created as Love, eternally one with Himself. Mistaken thoughts that lead to misperceptions have no real effect. As we let thoughts of Love guide us, our perception of our world changes. We see a world where Love prevails. The truth in our brothers is recognized as our true Friend. The uncertainty of the ego is replaced by the certainty of God’s Love for us and in us.

Today we welcome God’s ideas of Love in our mind to guide us on our journey Home.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Accepting the True Self We Share with All

I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.

Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother’s sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.

What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my brother’s sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 335, W-pII.335. See also ACIM Lesson 335 Insights.)

Perception requires a perceiver and something separate that is perceived. This could only seem to occur in a dream where separation is believed to be real. In this dream we believe we are a self separate from everything in the world. Yet God created His one Son eternally united with Him in the oneness of His Love.

Our true Self is God’s Son. This Self is the same Self we share with every brother. When we see our brother as the Love He is, we see our one Self. This is true perception, for it overlooks the division the ego would have us see. In the world of perception, the best we can do is perceive the Love that our brother is.

When forgiveness is complete, Love is wholly accepted. We perceive the truth in our brother which reflects our own completion in the Love of God. We have let go of the ego’s insistence on separation and welcomed the Reality of our true Self in God. Perception is no longer needed, for we remember our unity in the Love of God, where we rest in the peace of His holiness.

Today we seek to see the Love in our brothers, for we would remember the Love we are. Together with our brother, we join in God’s peace and joy.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

What Do We Want to See?

Trusting [the truth in] your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack [judge] a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours.

Perception has a focus. It is this that gives consistency to what you see. Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. Your vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. Remove your focus on your brother’s sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness.

And as our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 181, W-pI.181.1:1-2:5;8:3-6. See also ACIM Lesson 181 Insights.)

We see what we want to see. If we align with the ego’s desire to make separation real, we see a world of fear and guilt, separation and lack of Love. With this intent, the world we see shows us sickness, loneliness, destruction, hate and fear. This is what the ego wants because it makes separation seem real. It gives the ego seeming existence.

But we can change our intent by aligning with our true Self, represented by the Holy Spirit in our mind. The Holy Spirit’s intent in every moment is to see with Love, to see with the vision of Christ. When we choose this intent, the real world of peace and Love is revealed to us. The false images generated by the ego’s intent fade into the nothingness from which they came.

What do we want to see? It is a simple choice. Do we want to protect the ego’s dream of fear and guilt? Or do we want to welcome the vision of the real world, where innocence is recognized and the unity of Love welcomed?

Today we practice welcoming the Holy Spirit’s gift of Christ’s vision, for we would see the real world of innocence and peace through the eyes of Love.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Relax into the Love of God

The hush of Heaven holds my heart today.

Father, how still today! How quietly do all things fall in place! This is the day that has been chosen as the time in which I come to under­stand the lesson that there is no need that I do anything. In You is every choice already made. In You has every conflict been resolved. In You is everything I hope to find already given me. Your peace is mine. My heart is quiet, and my mind at rest. Your Love is Heaven, and Your Love is mine.

The stillness of today will give us hope that we have found the way, and travelled far along it to a wholly certain goal. Today we will not doubt the end which God Himself has promised us. We trust in Him, and in our Self, Who still is one with Him. (W-pII.286)

The ego is constantly working to maintain the illusion that it is possible to be separate from God and make a world where everything is disconnected and unity denied. This constant engagement and efforting to make this world is essential to maintain the seeming reality of separation from Love.

The ego is terrified of peace because it is held in our mind through conflict. While we engage in the ego’s view of the world, we feel alone, fearful and guilty because of what we think we have done and others do to us.

Yet it is impossible to do anything that can change the Self God created as His Son. We need to let go and be our Self. To awaken to the certainty of our presence within God’s Love, we just need to stop engaging with the ego’s efforts to maintain the veil of separation. We need to relax our efforts and settle into the quiet peace of God’s Love. In truth we have nothing to defend, for we remain unified with God and His Love.

Today we pause, allow ourselves to relax into the Love of God, where the quietness of Heaven comforts us and Love blesses us with the joy that our unity with every brother in Love brings.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 3 of 5 pages  < 1 2 3 4 5 > 

<< Back to main page of Daily Inspiration.

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.