Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Gift of True Forgiveness

Who is my brother but Your holy Son? And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God; alone and friendless in a fearful world. Yet this perception is a choice I make, and can relinquish. I can also see my brother sinless, as Your holy Son. And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear. Choose, then, for me, my Father, through Your Voice. For He alone gives judgment in Your Name.

Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again. I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it. Father, I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. For I would love my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 351, W-pII.351-352. See also ACIM Lesson 351 Insights.)

Perception starts with what we believe we are. We project this belief on the world to make our beliefs seem true. Because our belief can change, our perception is changeable. With the help of God’s Voice, we can learn to let go of the mistaken belief that we are separate. As we accept the Love we are, we perceive a loving world.

The Love that our true Self is never changes. We bring this Love to the world through forgiveness, through letting go of the false belief in being separate. This is how we remove the barriers to Love’s presence. These barriers are nothing but false beliefs. As we let go of the false beliefs, Love shines forth everywhere. We find peace as we remember our true Self. Here we find the memory of our eternal unity with God. Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves and the world. Today we choose God’s Voice as our Guide in all our doing.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Allowing the Holy Instant

A holy relationship is a means of saving time. One instant spent together with your brother restores the universe to both of you. You are prepared. Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. When peace comes at last…, it always comes with just one happy realization; “I need do nothing.”

Time has been saved for you because you and your brother are together. This [holy relationship] is the special means this course is using to save you time. …“I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.

To do anything involves the body. And if you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right now. For here is time denied, and past and future gone. Who needs do nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. He will remain when you forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy your conscious mind.

This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep [the body sinless] in your awareness of it. (A Course in Miracles, T-18.VII.5:2-7;6:3-4,7-8;7;8:3-5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego is high maintenance. To maintain the illusion that the body and the world is real requires constant attention on the past and the future and ignoring the present. It is this ego “doing” that needs to be let go to allow the present instant into our awareness.

This is why the Course talks about “undoing.” We need to undo our dedication to time and separation to make way for the recognition of our eternal unity with every brother as the one Son of God and our Creator. The awareness of this unity is at the center of our Being. It is our true Self, which has never lost Its connection with Love’s oneness.

The unity of Love is welcomed in the holy relationship. Here separation is no longer valued. In this holy instant of recognition we find the peace and joy of our true Self, united with our brothers.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Antidote for Feelings of Inadequacy

Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real strength.… Close your eyes and begin, as usual, by repeating the idea for the day [God is the strength in which I trust]. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in your life which you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling yourself:

God is the strength in which I trust.

Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy. It is obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequacy, for otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things.

The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors…. You must also gain an awareness that confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances.

There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 47, W-pI.47.4:1,3-5;5-6;7:4-6. See also ACIM Lesson 47 Insights.)

Anxiety, sadness, loneliness, guilt and fear are all sure signs that we are trusting in our own strength as an identity separate from God. This is because we are denying the strength of God in us. A sense of inadequacy is an inevitable consequence. Despite our denial, God’s strength is still in us because, in truth, it is impossible to break the eternal unity of God with all His Creation.

The antidote for our feelings of inadequacy begins with acknowledging our own frailty. The next step is to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to connect with the peace of God within. In that peace we will remember God’s strength. We will feel His comfort and certainty. We will remember that we are safe in His changeless Love. We will trust in the strength of God in us.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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We Are One Self United with Our Father

Spirit makes use of mind as means to find its Self expression. And the mind which serves the spirit is at peace and filled with joy. Its power comes from spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here. Yet mind can also see itself divorced from spirit, and perceive itself within a body it confuses with itself. Without its function then it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its thoughts.

Yet mind apart from spirit cannot think. It has denied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak. Dissociated from its function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed against itself and hiding in the body’s frail support. Now must it reconcile unlike with like, for this is what it thinks that it is for.

Salvation cannot make illusions real, nor solve a problem that does not exist.

Salvation comes from this one Self through Him Who is the Bridge between your mind and It. Wait patiently, and let Him speak to you about your Self, and what your mind can do, restored to [your one Self] and free to serve Its Will. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 96, W-pI.96.4-5;6:6;8:3-4. See also ACIM Lesson 96 Insights.)

The belief that we are a body comes from a made up mind separated from the one Mind of God, Which is our Home. This belief in being a body makes our mind seem to be separate as well, sharing the attributes of a body. Now this “separate mind” seems to be limited, weak, vulnerable to outside forces, capable of attack and destruction. The belief in this story is the problem at the core of all our fear and guilt.

This story could never be true because our true Self remains united in the oneness of our Creator. it shares the attributes of our Creator — perfect Love, happiness and peace. The solution to our problems is to accept our true Self as It is.

The Holy Spirit is in our mind ready in every instant to teach us that we are united as one Self with the oneness of God’s Love. We can receive assurance of this truth if we are willing to open our hearts and minds to the Holy Spirit’s healing message: “You are one Self, united with your Creator, whole, complete, changeless in your Father’s Love.”

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Finding the Answer That Heals

Only within the holy instant can an honest question honestly be asked. And from the meaning of the question does the meaningfulness of the answer come. Here is it possible to separate your wishes from the answer, so it can be given you and also be received. The answer is provided everywhere. Yet it is only here it can be heard. An honest answer asks no sacrifice because it answers questions truly asked. The questions of the world but ask of whom is sacrifice demanded, asking not if sacrifice is meaningful at all. And so, unless the answer tells “of whom,” it will remain unrecognized, unheard, and thus the question is preserved intact because it gave the answer to itself. The holy instant is the interval in which the mind is still enough to hear an answer that is not entailed within the question asked. It offers something new and different from the question. How could it be answered if it but repeats itself?

Therefore, attempt to solve no problems in a world from which the answer has been barred. But bring the problem to the only place that holds the answer lovingly for you. Here are the answers that will solve your problems because they stand apart from them, and see what can be answered; what the question is. Within the world the answers merely raise another question, though they leave the first unanswered. In the holy instant, you can bring the question to the answer, and receive the answer that was made for you. (A Course in Miracles, T-27.IV.6-7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The holy instant could be called an instant out of time, free of the past and future. The baggage of past memories clouds our awareness of the eternal now, which is all that is real. The world we experience is the domain of time where the past is valued for its “lessons” to use as the basis of our judgments. It is these judgments which color our questions with memories of the past. These questions are not honest because they are based on the lie that the past is real.

In the purity of the holy instant our minds are not closed by our judgments. We are open to a way of seeing that cannot be found in the world. Now we are free to seek an answer to the real problem which is a mistaken perception of separation. In the holy instant only oneness exists. In the peace of oneness we can receive an answer that heals the division we believed was real.

We open to the holy instant through connecting with the peace within, our true Self. Here is the Answer. Here is the Truth, for peace and understanding go together and never can be found alone.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Infinite Love Within

Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness [ego] behind, and wander not in vain? It is not sacrifice to wake to glory. But it is sacrifice to accept anything less than glory. Learn that you must be worthy of the Prince of Peace [God’s Son], born in you in honor of Him Whose host you are. You know not what love means because you have sought to purchase it with little gifts, thus valuing it too little to understand its magnitude. Love is not little and love dwells in you, for you are host to Him. Before the greatness [God’s Son] that lives in you, your poor appreciation of yourself and all the little offerings you give slip into nothingness.

Holy child of God, when will you learn that only holiness [Love’s oneness] can content you and give you peace? Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did. It is because I learned for you that you can learn of me. I would but teach you what is yours, so that together we can replace the shabby littleness that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in you is your awakening to grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger, but into the altar to holiness, where holiness abides in perfect peace. My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in you [your true Self]. And you are of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who must remain forever beyond littleness. (A Course in Miracles, T-15.III.8-9. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego is littleness because it is an attempt to separate off a piece of infinite Love to keep for itself alone. It is the preference for specialness over unlimited Love. This can only seem to be real by denying our unbreakable unity with God’s Love. This limited image is incapable of experiencing the grandeur of God’s infinite, unlimited Love.

The celebration of Christmas represents the acceptance of Christ, God’s Son, which is in us now. From that point of acceptance, Christ’s vision shows us our unity with the true Self of every brother. The perception of littleness, individuality, fades. We join in the joyous recognition of the infinite Love we share and extend without limit.

As we move into the season of celebration, let us accept Christ’s vision, which shows us the Prince of Peace born in us all, untouched by our belief in littleness. We exchange a false image of our self for the recognition of our true Self, host to the infinite, changeless Love of God, and share this Love with all.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting God’s Attributes as Ours

Today we continue with the one idea which brings complete salvation; the one statement which makes all forms of temptation powerless; the one thought which renders the ego silent and entirely undone. You are as God created you.

Begin …with these words:

I am as God created me.
I am His Son eternally.

Now try to reach the Son of God in you. This is the Self that never sinned, nor made an image to replace reality. This is the Self that never left Its home in God to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self that knows no fear, nor could conceive of loss or suffering or death.

Nothing is required of you to reach this goal except to lay all idols and self-images aside; go past the list of attributes, both good and bad, you have ascribed to yourself; and wait in silent expectancy for the truth. God has Himself promised that it will be revealed to all who ask for it. You are asking now. You cannot fail because He cannot fail. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 94, W-pI.94.1:1-2;3🔢4-4:4. See also ACIM Lesson 94 Insights.)

The ego is simply a temptation to perceive separation as real. Identifying with a body is an ego temptation. It is driven by the wish for specialness, to have something we can call ours alone. This wish blocks our awareness that we already have all of God’s Love, joy and peace.

We were created by God with these attributes. As we accept the Self that God created one with Him, we accept His attributes as ours. The limited attributes the ego assigns to an idol of a separate identity are an illusion with no meaning in truth. God has promised that His Will will never change.

Today we practice laying aside the temptation to seek temporary satisfaction in images of separation and accept the perfect happiness, peace and changeless Love of God as What we are.

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