Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Learning the Lesson of Love’s Oneness

This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience; a different kind of feeling and awareness. You have spent long days and nights in celebrating death [separation]. Today you learn to feel the joy of life [Love’s oneness].

Today it will be given you to feel a touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning. Yet you have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above [time’s] laws, and walk into eternity a while. This you will learn to do increasingly, as every lesson, faithfully rehearsed, brings you more swiftly to this holy place and leaves you, for a moment, to your Self.

Nothing is needed but today’s idea [Into His Presence would I enter now] to light your mind, and let [your mind] rest in still anticipation and in quiet joy, wherein you quickly leave the world behind.

From this day forth, your ministry takes on a genuine devotion, and a glow that travels from your fingertips to those you touch, and blesses those you look upon. A vision reaches everyone you meet, and everyone you think of, or who thinks of you. For your experience today will so transform your mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 157,W-pI.157.1:4-6;3;4:3-5:3. See also ACIM Lesson 157 Insights.)

The world we experience with the body teaches us that separation is real. We have dedicated our time to learning and relearning this lesson to make the world seem real. Now it is time to make a new dedication to learn a different lesson — the holy lesson our true Self would have us learn. This lesson is completely opposite to the ego’s lesson of separation. 

Learning this holy lesson also requires dedication and practice. This practice brings us into alignment with the Will of our true Self, which is the Will of God. The power and Love of God support this practice, guaranteeing that we will learn the lesson that we are eternally in God’s Presence. Each time we practice this we gain a greater sense of the joy of being at Home in God.

This lesson needs to be repeated again and again until the old lesson of the ego has been fully let go. Each time we practice and experience a touch of Heaven, we bring the experience back with us and see the world a little differently. As we bring this vision to the world, our healing extends to all. This is our ministry as we practice entering into the Presence of our true Self.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Treasure Beyond Measure

I am one Self, united with my Creator.

Serenity and perfect peace are mine, because I am one Self,
completely whole, at one with all creation and with God.

Salvation comes from my one Self.

From my one Self, Whose knowledge still remains within my mind,
I see God’s perfect plan for my salvation perfectly fulfilled.

I am spirit.

I am the Son of God. No body can contain my spirit,
nor impose on me a limitation God created not.

I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

What can my function be but to accept the Word of God [God’s Plan],
Who has created me for what I am and will forever be? (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 113,W-pI.113:1-2;114:1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 113 Insights.)

To choose the body, an image of separation as our identity is to choose limitation. The ego’s purpose for the body is to limit the Son of God and limit Love. This could never be accomplished in truth because Love is limitless and unchangeable.

By identifying with a limited image of our self we make ourselves unaware of the Love we are. Yet our true Self is still with us and available the instant we choose to deny the ego’s denial of Love. That choice is the acceptance of our Self as God created It. His plan for our salvation is to lead us back to the full remembrance that we remain as He created us — whole, complete and unified with our Creator, all That is Real.

God has given us a Guide to lead us out of the chaos, guilt and fear inherent in the ego thought system. Being willing to accept His guidance requires that we are at least willing to question everything we believe about the world. With this opening, we can be taught to recognize the Real from the unreal. Once recognized, we naturally choose the Real, for the unreal is seen as valueless. The Real is recognized as a treasure beyond measure, for it is God’s perfect Love.

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

Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain. Doubt along the way will come and go and go to come again. Yet is the ending sure. No one can fail to do what God appointed him to do. When you forget, remember that you walk with Him and with His Word upon your heart. Who could despair when hope like this is his? Illusions of despair may seem to come, but learn how not to be deceived by them. Behind each one there is reality and there is God. Why would you wait for this and trade it for illusions, when His Love is but an instant farther on the road where all illusions end? The end is sure and guaranteed by God. Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world?

Let us wait here in silence, and kneel down an instant in our gratitude to Him Who called to us and helped us hear His Call. And then let us arise and go in faith along the way to Him. Now we are sure we do not walk alone. For God is here, and with Him all our brothers. Now we know that we will never lose the way again. (A Course in Miracles,C-ep.1;4:1-5)

The Course is offering us a means to heal our minds through a complete reversal of what we have thought is true. Theoretically this reversal is as simple as turning a light switch on. Yet few of us find it that easy. We have invested deeply in believing that we are a separate identity, defined by a body, in a world populated by images of separation.

Letting go of that image seems to be life threatening. The ego shrieks, “Don’t go there!” It sees this reversal as death, for it is the end of the identity the ego has convinced us is real. Thus a simple change of mind becomes a complicated journey of letting go bit by bit of the mistaken beliefs that hide the truth of our real Identity from our awareness.

Progress may seem slow and the ego uses this seemingly slow pace to tell us the journey is hopeless. Despair is its tool to interrupt our willingness to leave the past behind. Yet we have a mighty Companion Who walks with us and supports us every step of the way. At the journey’s end we have lost nothing and remembered that we have everything given us by our Creator.

The seemingly long process of letting go of false beliefs accelerates each time we let the Holy Spirit shine away the shadow of an illusion. Lessons learned generalize as they are recognized as applying to many mistaken ideas. These false ideas fall away naturally as we continue to learn the Holy Spirit’s lessons by our willingness to be taught.

Today we hold out our hands offering the gift of willingness to the Holy Spirit, for we would return Home to the joy and peace and Love of God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Freedom Comes with Releasing the Past

You consider it “natural” to use your past experience as the reference point from which to judge the present. Yet this is unnatural because it is delusional. When you have learned to look on everyone with no reference at all to the past, either his or yours as you perceived it, you will be able to learn from what you see now. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the present, unless you are afraid of light. And only if you are would you choose to bring darkness with you, and by holding [the past] in your mind, see it as a dark cloud that shrouds your brothers and conceals their reality from your sight.

This darkness is in you [your mind]. The Christ as revealed to you now has no past, for He is changeless, and in His changelessness lies your release. For if He is as He was created, there is no guilt in Him. No cloud of guilt has risen to obscure Him, and He stands revealed in everyone you meet because you see Him through Himself. To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present. The cloud that obscures God’s Son to you is the past, and if you would have it past and gone, you must not see [the past] now. If you see it now in your illusions, it has not gone from you, although it is not there.

The miracle enables you to see your brother without his past, and so perceive him as born again. His errors are all past, and by perceiving him without [his errors] you are releasing him. And since his past is yours, you share in this release. (A Course in Miracles,T-13.VI.2-3;5:1-3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The continuation of guilt and fear in our minds depends upon bringing the past into our present awareness. Yet the past is over and does not exist now. Judging the present based upon perceptions from the past makes us blind to what is real now.

Only Love is real, therefore only Love is now. To perceive anything else is to perceive an illusion that is not really there. To free ourselves from the past, we must relinquish all judgment. Without the unreal past, we have no basis for judgment. To attempt to judge based on illusions from the past is insanity. To return to the sanity that accepts the reality of Love, we must turn all our judgments over to the Holy Spirit and let His Light shine away the dark shadows of the past.

As we see our brothers through the Holy Spirit’s vision, we see him as he is now — Love and nothing else. This vision mirrors back to us the truth of the Self we are. When we see our brothers truly, we see our Self truly. We remember we are Love and nothing else.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgetting the Past; Remembering the Truth

To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection. For the shadow figures you would make immortal are “enemies” of reality. Be willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do. The shadow figures are the witnesses you bring with you to demonstrate he did what he did not [in Truth]. Because you bring them, you will hear them [experience them as real]. And you who keep them by your own selection do not understand how they came into your mind, and what their purpose is. [The shadows of the past] represent the evil that you think was done to you. You bring them with you only that you may return evil for evil, hoping that their witness will enable you to think guiltily of another and not harm yourself. They speak so clearly for the separation that no one not obsessed with keeping separation could hear them. They offer you the “reasons” why you should enter into unholy alliances to support the ego’s goals, and make your relationships the witness to [the ego’s] power. (A Course in Miracles,T-17.III.1. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The truth of What we are as God’s one Son is changeless. That is why anything that appears to happen in the dream of separation never really occurred. It is this that makes release from the dream of fear and guilt possible. When we stop bringing memories of past “hurts” to the present in our minds, we will remember God. We will remember that we are the Self God created one with Him.

This is why forgiveness is the lynch pin of the Course’s curriculum to heal our mind. We forget the past by letting the Holy Spirit teach us what to remember. He will teach us to remember the truth of Love and let go of the mistaken beliefs that make illusions seem real. This is our path to release from fear and guilt and return to Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Key to Awakening

It is extremely important to be conscious of the activity of your mind as it takes place in your life in the form of a continuous or near continuous stream of thoughts, images, feelings, emotions and responses to outward conditions. Without this awareness, the willingness to choose truth over illusion cannot be brought into play consistently. Through the consistent choice of Truth, the mind [split mind] is quickly and skillfully undone. In fact, the willingness to be vigilant even every moment, to be constantly present in your mind, is necessary for your willingness to choose Truth to have a chance to do so.

Willingness itself will grow under the Holy Spirit’s tutelage until it includes your entire life and all that you think, feel and do. Willingness is the single requirement you must supply to the undertaking of the process of awakening to and as the Self. The Holy Spirit will provide everything else that is needed, and will supplement your little willingness with His. (From the Christ Mind Book II, p. 125)

When we think we know the answer to a question, we are unwilling to receive an answer that is different from the answer we have decided is true. Our mind is closed and may even defend against a different answer. This is why the Holy Spirit needs our willingness to accept His help. He is the Answer but He cannot force us to accept His inspiration.

Only the ego thinks in terms of coercion. The Holy Spirit knows healing comes through joining. An open mind welcomes the joining. The ego choice for separation closes the mind. This is why one of the early Course lessons teaches us that we do not know what anything means. The acceptance of this fact is the key to willingness and therefore the key to awakening.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Letting Go of Perception of Differences

Inspiration is of the Holy Spirit, and certainty is of God according to His laws. Both, therefore, come from the same Source, since inspiration comes from the Voice for God and certainty comes from the laws of God.

The Holy Spirit must work through you to teach you He is in you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge [certainty] that you are in God because you are part of Him.

The ego always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal. As you heal you are healed, because the Holy Spirit sees no order of difficulty in healing. Healing is the way to undo the belief in differences, being the only way of perceiving the Sonship as one. This perception is therefore in accord with the laws of God, even in a state of mind that is out of accord with His. The strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind into accord with His, because it serves His Voice, which is in all of you.

Healing is a way of forgetting the sense of danger the ego has induced in you, by not recognizing [danger’s] existence in your brother. This strengthens the Holy Spirit in both of you, because it is a refusal to acknowledge fear. Love needs only this invitation. It comes freely to all the Sonship, being what the Sonship is. By your awakening to [Love], you are merely forgetting what you are not. This enables you to remember what you are. (A Course in Miracles,T-7.IV.1:2-3;2:1-2;5:2-7;7:7-11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Because we, the Son of God, are one, as we extend healing to a brother, we are healed. Healing is undoing the belief in differences by letting go of the ego wish to separate and accepting Love’s oneness as what we are.

If we are willing, the Holy Spirit will inspire us with His perception of Love’s oneness. This is how He teaches us to recognize false perception and turn our attention to the Light of Love. We learn to recognize the truth of What our brother is and recognize it as What we are. Each time we let go of a mistaken perception of differences, we take another step forward to the certainty that we remain Love, as God created us.

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