Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Purpose of Forgiveness

You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. ²Is it your decision to do so? ³You recognize from your own experience that what you see in dreams you think is real while you are asleep. ⁴Yet the instant you waken you realize that everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all. ⁵You do not think this strange, even though all the laws of what you awaken to were violated while you slept. ⁶Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really waking?

⁷When you remember [waken], you will know that what you remember is eternal, and therefore is now.

You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. ²Knowing Them you will have no wish to sleep, but only the desire to waken and be glad. ³Dreams will be impossible because you will want only truth, and being at last your will, [oneness] will be yours. (A Course in Miracles, T-10.I.2;3:7–4:3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The purpose of forgiveness is to let go of all beliefs and thoughts of specialness. The wish for specialness appears in our experience as judgments, guilt, fear, loneliness and sadness. These can only occur when we are unaware of the oneness of Love in which we live and have our being.

The truth in us desires only to be united with Love and extend It without limit. This is the Will we share with our Creator. Our function here in the world is to forgive and let go of all our barriers to Love. We welcome the help of the Holy Spirit to fulfill our function.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Joining God’s Unlimited Extension of Love

There is no question but one you should ever ask of yourself;—“Do I want to know my Father’s Will for me?” …Our function is to work together, because apart from each other we cannot function at all. ⁵The whole power of God’s Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. ⁶God would not have us be alone because He does not will to be alone. ⁷That is why He created His Son, and gave him the power to create with Him.

³We cannot be separated. ⁴Whom God has joined cannot be separated, and God has joined all His Sons with Himself. ⁵Can you be separated from your life and your being? ⁶The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. ⁷It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. ⁸Truth can only be experienced. ⁹It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. ¹⁰I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God. ¹¹Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself. (A Course in Miracles, T-8.VI.8:1,4-7;9:3-11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

This world is an expression of our rebellion against God’s Will for us. It makes no sense to rebel against Love. God’s Will for us is to remain united with Him in the eternal extension of Love’s oneness. But the wish for specialness, to have more than all of His Love, must deny His Will. So we choose a fantasy instead of the truth.

We can choose to accept the truth now, in every moment. With this acceptance comes perfect peace and joy beyond words. We have convinced ourselves that the world offers us something we want. Yet all it can offer are illusions which never satisfy. We still yearn and search for the Love we have denied. Only our images of substitutes hide the presence of Love in which we dwell.

We call upon the Voice for God to guide us to recognize the false images for what they are and let them go. This is how we will meet the conditions of truth. With these conditions we will realize that we remain forever united with God’s Will. We join with Him in the unlimited sharing of His Love.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiveness Reflects Love in the World

The world must thank you when you offer it release from your illusions. ²Yet your thanks belong to you as well, for [the world’s] release can only mirror yours. ³Your gratitude is all your gifts [of forgiveness] require, that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart, released from hell forever. ⁴Is it this you would undo by taking back your gifts, because they were not honored? ⁵It is you who honor them and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts.

It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy. ²In his mind there is a part that joins with yours in thanking you. ³It does not matter if your gifts seem lost and ineffectual. ⁴They are received where they are given. ⁵In your gratitude are they accepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the Heart of God Himself.

³To everyone who lives will Christ yet come, for everyone must live and move in Him. ⁴His Being in His Father is secure, because Their Will is One. ⁵Their gratitude to all They have created has no end, for gratitude remains a part of love. (A Course in Miracles, W-197.3:1–4:5;7:3-5. See also ACIM Lesson 197 Insights.)

In the world it seems that our forgiveness is applied to an external circumstance or person. Yet the dream is only a projection from our own mind, the part that believes separation is real. The path to freedom from the loveless hell we have projected is through forgiveness. Thus whatever we forgive, it is only forgiveness of our own mistaken beliefs.

All situations, events or circumstances which are not loving or peaceful offer lessons we need to learn. They merely reflect our beliefs that deny Love. Forgiveness always is a gift because it removes a barrier to awareness of Love’s presence. Forgiveness is Love’s reflection in the world.

Today we welcome the Holy Spirit’s help to forgive our mistaken beliefs and be messengers of Love in the world.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Transforming Our Perceptions with the Holy Spirit

Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? ²In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. ³Nothing you see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness. ⁴And nothing will you value like unto this, nor hold so dear. ⁵Nothing that you remember that made your heart sing with joy has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. ⁶For you will see the Son of God. ⁷You will behold the beauty the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and which He thanks the Father for. ⁸He was created to see this for you, until you learned to see it for yourself. ⁹And all His teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.

This loveliness is not a fantasy. ²It is the real world…”

The real world is attained simply by the complete forgiveness of the old, the world you see without forgiveness. ²The great Transformer of perception will undertake with you the careful searching of the mind that made this world, and uncover to you the seeming reasons for your making it. ³In the light of the real reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will show you that there is no reason here at all. ⁴Each spot His reason touches grows alive with beauty, and what seemed ugly in the darkness of your lack of reason is suddenly released to loveliness. ⁵Not even what the Son of God made in insanity could be without a hidden spark of beauty that gentleness could release. (A Course in Miracles, T-17.II.1;2:1-2;5:1-5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

We need the Holy Spirit, the great Transformer of perception, to help us clear our minds of the thoughts that make the dream of a world of separation. We have gotten so engrossed in the ego thought system that we cannot see past its darkness to the Light of Love in which we live.

If we are willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s help, He will teach us to recognize the illusions of this world for what they are. He will show us that these illusions are based on nothing and are not real. With His help, we will lay the illusions down as we recognize their falsity. As we forgive and let them go, we will learn to see the glory that is the truth in every brother and ourselves as God’s Son.

Beyond every perception in the world is a lesson in Love God would have us learn. Today we reinforce our determination to let the Holy Spirit help us transform our perceptions. We want to perceive the real world that forgiveness reveals to us. As we recognize it, our hearts are filled with joy and peace. We remember that we live in Love.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing to See Love’s Presence

Now it is given you to heal and teach, to make what will be now. ²As yet it is not now. ³The Son of God believes that he is lost in guilt, alone in a dark world where pain is pressing everywhere upon him from without. ⁴When he has looked within and seen the radiance there, he will remember how much his Father loves him. ⁵And it will seem incredible that he ever thought his Father loved him not, and looked upon him as condemned. ⁶The moment that you realize guilt is insane, wholly unjustified and wholly without reason, you will not fear to look upon the Atonement and accept it wholly.

You who have been unmerciful to yourself do not remember your Father’s Love. ²And looking without mercy upon your brothers, you do not remember how much you love Him. ³Yet it is forever true. ⁴In shining peace within you is the perfect purity in which you were created. ⁵Fear not to look upon the lovely truth in you. ⁶Look through the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and look past darkness to the holy place where you will see the light. ⁷The altar to your Father is as pure as He Who raised it to Himself. ⁸Nothing can keep from you what Christ would have you see. ⁹His Will is like His Father’s, and He offers mercy to every child of God, as He would have you do.”

¹⁰Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity and be still. ¹¹In quiet look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father that no guilt has ever touched him. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.X.8:1–9:9;11:10-11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

In our dream of separation we see only what we want to see. Because of our wish for specialness, we see only separate images whose differences confirm the “reality” of separation. But this seeing is only in the dream. It does not change our true Reality at all. The dream is only a projection of what we want to be true.

The dream overlooks the present, so we do not see Love as real. Now is the time to focus our attention on What is eternal. The Love we are does not change because its Source is changeless.

Today we choose to recognize Love’s presence everywhere—in our brothers and ourselves. As we welcome Love, the clouds of guilt and fear fade. The Light is revealed.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Returning to the Kingdom of Love

The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. ²See how life springs up everywhere! ³The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. ⁴Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a desert was. ⁵And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from Heaven for you. ⁶They enter one by one into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone. ⁷The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will stay with you. ⁸And under its beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.

Go out and find them, for they bring your Self with them. ²And lead them gently to your quiet garden, and receive their blessing there. ³So will it grow and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away from love, and leaving you inside. ⁴And you will recognize yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven, with all the Love of its Creator shining upon it.

The holy instant is your invitation to love to enter into your bleak and joyless kingdom, and to transform it into a garden of peace and welcome. (A Course in Miracles, T-18.VIII.9:1–11:1. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Our true Self lives in God’s Kingdom of Love. We do not have to search for individuals to invite into the Kingdom we share with God. But we do need to let Love guide our perception of every brother. We bring our brothers into the Kingdom when we see them as Love, united with our one Self.

As we welcome our brother, we are welcoming part of our one Self; we are welcoming the Love we are. As we let Love in, we feel Its peace and joy. We see our brothers as one with our one Self. Together we are God’s Son.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit to heal our misperceptions of being separate, and we welcome our brothers in the oneness of Love. We are one Self; there is no distance between us.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning That Only Love Is Real

⁶What the body’s eyes behold is only conflict. ⁷Look not to them for peace and understanding.

Illusions are always illusions of differences.

⁷When he realizes they are all illusions they will disappear.

“The body’s eyes will continue to see differences. ²But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. ³There will be those who seem to be “sicker” than others, and the body’s eyes will report their changed appearances as before. ⁴But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. ⁵This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. ⁶And of these two, but one is real. ⁷Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within [reality]—so too are illusions without distinctions. ⁸The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. ⁹The one answer to all illusions is truth. (A Course in Miracles, M-8.1:6–2:1;5:7;6)

We have taught ourselves that differences are real. We depend on the appearances of differences to function in a dream of differences. This self-taught lesson keeps us embedded in the dream. To wake up from this dream, we need a Teacher from outside this dream.

To awaken from this fearful and guilty dream, we need to welcome our inner Teacher’s lessons in Love. The practice of asking for the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of our perceptions to replace our own brings Light into our darkened mind.

As we welcome His lessons, the appearances that seem to affect us diminish. We learn to look past appearances to the presence of Love in everyone and everything. We learn that the appearances are unreal and dismiss them. Our dreams become more loving and Light filled. Peace replaces conflict. Joy replaces sadness and a sense of loss. And the differences we perceive fade into the oneness of Love.

We can make this year all the same as we let our mind be taught that only Love is real.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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