Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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An Essential Lesson to Awaken

To give is to receive. Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone, and see how quickly peace returns to us. Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us, and we can see.

So we begin the practice periods with the instruction for today, and say:

To give and to receive are one in truth.
I will receive what I am giving now.

Then close your eyes, and for five minutes think of what you would hold out to everyone, to have it yours. You might, for instance, say:

To everyone I offer quietness.
To everyone I offer peace of mind.
To everyone I offer gentleness.

Say each one slowly and then pause a while, expecting to receive the gift you gave. And it will come to you in the amount in which you gave it. You will find you have exact return, for that is what you asked. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 108, W-pI.108.7:3-9:3. See also ACIM Lesson 108 Insights.)

In the dream world of separation, it is impossible for giving to appear to be the same as receiving. Everything in the dream of separation has limits. It is limited by shape or place or time. This exercise helps us reconnect with the oneness of our true Self. We remain one with God/Love. Love has no limit. It is eternally giving and receiving, for Love gives only to Itself.

To know the Love we are, we cannot limit It in any way, for that would be attempting to change Love. When we try to do this, we lose awareness of what Love is. We cannot give Love to some and not to others and know Love. By practicing offering the attributes of Love to others, such as gentleness, kindness and peace, we learn by experience that what we offer comes back to us. This is an essential lesson that teaches us of our oneness in Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Hearing the Voice for God

It is quite possible to listen to God’s Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not. It is the other part of your mind that functions in the world and obeys the world’s laws. It is this part that is constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain.

The part that is listening to the Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain. It is really the only part there is. The other part is a wild illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind. Try today not to listen to it. Try to identify with the part of your mind where stillness and peace reign forever. Try to hear God’s Voice call to you lovingly, reminding you that your Creator has not forgotten His Son.”

Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind. Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world. You do not live here. We are trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 49, W-pI.49.1-2;4. See also ACIM Lesson 49 Insights.)

It is the mistaken belief that we know what anything means on our own that shuts out the Voice for God. We think we know what everything means, and if we are uncertain, we look to our past for clues to what meaning there might be. This practice keeps us firmly embedded in the illusion of separation. It prevents the Voice of God from entering our awareness. His Voice is heard in the present, free of the past, certain in the reality of the present moment.

To find the peace of God and hear His loving Voice, we must be willing to relinquish our own interpretations of the world. We must be willing to accept the possibility that our interpretations may be wrong. This is why the early lessons emphasize that we do not know what anything means. We are never upset for the reason we think.

As we open our minds to the possibility of a different interpretation, our willingness to hear God’s Voice increases. Our attachments to our thoughts in the world soften. We can let these thoughts pass by more easily so that our minds settle into the quiet, calm place within, where God’s Voice is heard. Here we find the true meaning that lies behind the illusions of the world. Here we find God’s peace. We find our Home.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiving Our Mistaken Beliefs

There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten; where no memory of sin and of illusion lingers still. There is a place in you which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard. There is a resting place so still no sound except a hymn to Heaven rises up to gladden God the Father and the Son. Where Both abide are They remembered, Both. And where They are is Heaven and is peace.

Think not that you can change Their dwelling place. For your Identity abides in Them [God and His Son], and where They are, forever must you be. The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within.

Nothing is asked of you but to accept the changeless and eternal that abide in [God’s Son (all our brothers)], for your Identity is there. The peace in you can but be found in [every brother]. And every thought of love you offer him but brings you nearer to your wakening to peace eternal and to endless joy. A Course in Miracles, (T-29.V.11-2;3:3-5. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

In the illusion of separation, God’s Son appears as many. But this appearance does not change the underlying fact that God’s Son is one, united with his Creator. When we choose to believe in a separate identity, we are blind to the reality of our true Identity in God, though it is still in us. Awareness of our one Identity in God is hidden by layers of illusions that we have taught ourselves are real. Time, bodies, images of a physical world are all illusions we have taught ourselves to believe are real.

By the grace of God we cannot make our illusions real, though we can believe they are real. It is these mistaken beliefs that must be undone for us to awaken from the dream and remember that the peace and joy of God are our own.

We let go of mistaken beliefs through forgiveness, directed by the Holy Spirit in our minds. The Course does not demand surrender. But it does teach us how to recognize the pain and suffering we experience in the illusion as unnecessary. It offers us the comfort of the Truth of Love’s oneness as the alternative to illusions. We experience discomfort only because we are believing in an illusion.

As we accept that we may have been wrong about what we believe, we become receptive to the Holy Spirit’s loving correction. The practice of asking Holy Spirit to guide all our seeing and to accept His interpretation of our perceptions frees us from mistaken beliefs that blind us to the truth that we are God’s Son dwelling in His peace and joy. This is the practice of forgiving ourselves for believing in what could never be true.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting Our Life in God

Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not true. They but seem to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to recognize them for what they are; and you will fail to do this to the extent to which you want them to be true. And to the same extent you are denying truth, and so are failing to make the simple choice between truth and illusion; God and fantasy. Remember this, and you will have no difficulty in perceiving the decision as just what it is, and nothing more.

The core of the separation illusion lies simply in the fantasy of destruction of love’s meaning. And unless love’s meaning is restored to you, you cannot know yourself who share its meaning. Separation is only the decision not to know yourself. This whole thought system is a carefully contrived learning experience, designed to lead away from truth and into fantasy. Yet for every learning that would hurt you, God offers you correction and complete escape from all its consequences.

The decision whether or not to listen to this course and follow it is but the choice between truth and illusion. For here is truth, separated from illusion and not confused with it at all. How simple does this choice become when it is perceived as only what it is. For only fantasies make confusion in choosing possible, and they are totally unreal. (A Course in Miracles, T-16.V.14-16. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

Our true Identity is the one Self created by God like Himself — Love and nothing else. The illusion of separation manifests as a body and the world we experience through the body. The body is a dream. (W-pII.5) It is an image made to hide the truth of our oneness in God’s Love. We have taught ourselves to believe that we are a false self that denies the Truth of What we are.

This false self cannot comprehend God’s Love because it is founded on the denial of that Love. We value this denial because we want to be special, to have some value no one else has. It is this wish for specialness that makes the world of form seem real.

In Truth, this wish is the denial of Life; it is the wish for death. And so the world of separate forms appears to be a place where Life ends in death. Fear is inevitable in such a world. But the Truth is that the Life of our true Self is the Life of God, eternal, unchanging, without end. In each moment we choose between a separate self identity and the one Self God created. We choose between death and Life.

We are saved from death by the fact that death could never happen in the changeless Reality of Love. God does not die nor does His Son, Who shares His Life. Our true Self is God’s Son. Every brother is one with us in the unity of God’s Son. As we accept the Holy Spirit’s vision of oneness in place of the ego’s images of separation, we free ourselves from death and accept our eternal Life in God. There truly is nothing to fear.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting Safety, Peace and Joy

God’s teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. They do not try to make themselves. Their joy comes from their understanding Who created them. And does what God created need defense? No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions. The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds that nothing was there. Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived. But he learns faster as his trust increases. It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy. And it is God. (A Course in Miracles, M-4.VI.1)

“The world was made as an attack on God.” (W-pII.3) The world we experience with a body which was made to attack Love certainly cannot be trusted. But if we see the world through the eyes of Christ, we learn that only the oneness of Love is really there. We learn to look past the images of the world, recognizing they are just illusions.

As we learn to trust that changeless Love is ever present, the seeming reality of the constantly changing images in the world fades. We let Christ’s vision guide our seeing more and more, instead of trusting in our perceptions through the body’s senses.

Today we call upon Christ’s vision to guide our seeing, that we may learn to trust in the reality of Love’s changeless presence. As we accept Love’s Presence, we learn to accept that safety, peace and joy are ours. We learn that we are at Home in God’s Love always.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing the Safety of God’s Love

Father, You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go. You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own. In You time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief. For what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love Itself. There is no source but this, and nothing is that does not share Its holiness; that stands beyond Your one creation, or without the Love which holds all things within Itself. Father, Your Son is like Yourself. We come to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.

My brothers, join with me in this today. This is salvation’s prayer. Must we not join in what will save the world, along with us? (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 264, W-pII.264.1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 246 Insights.)

We are surrounded by the changeless Love of God. Love’s changelessness protects us from harm because harm, were it possible, would cause a change. Love could be symbolized as an immutable bubble that includes God and all His creation, all that is real. As His Son, we are within the sure protection of this all inclusive Love.

If we identify with an imaginary separate body, we believe we are outside this bubble, without the sure protection of God’s Love. This leaves us feeling vulnerable and fearful. Yet this is only because we have imagined ourselves in a place that could never exist, outside the Reality of Love. We return to the comfort and safety of our Home in Love by letting go of identifying with an imaginary separate identity.

Forgiveness is the way we let go of false images that hide the safety of God’s Love from our awareness. Today we choose the safety of God’s Love in place of vain imaginings.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to See Love Everywhere

The attraction of guilt produces fear of love, for love would never look on guilt at all. It is the nature of love to look upon only the truth, for there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and completion. As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not. For love contains the end of guilt, as surely as fear depends on it. Love is attracted only to love. Overlooking guilt completely, it sees no fear. Being wholly without attack, it could not be afraid. Fear is attracted to what love sees not, and each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. Fear looks on guilt with just the same devotion that love looks on itself. And each has messengers which it sends forth, and which return to it with messages written in the language in which their going forth was asked.

If you send forth only the messengers the Holy Spirit gives you, wanting no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it. And none you cannot ask love’s messengers to remove from it, and see it still. The Holy Spirit has given you His messengers to send to your brother and return to you with what love sees. They have been given to replace the hungry dogs of fear you sent instead. And they go forth to signify the end of fear. (A Course in Miracles, T-19.IV.A.10;15. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

As it says in the beginning of the Course, fear is the opposite of Love. But Love has no opposite, so fear does not exist. Fear can only be experienced in the illusion of separation.

Judgment is the ego’s key tool for establishing and maintaining separation. Judgment establishes guilt. That is why the ego is attracted to guilt. It is this need to establish guilt that keeps the ego constantly searching for opportunities to judge. The ego’s messengers are always on the prowl to find “reason” to judge and make guilty. It is this that seems to make the ego exist. Since guilt demands punishment, fear always accompanys guilt.

The Holy Spirit, being the Voice for Love, sends out messengers seeking only Love. Love sees only Love, being unable to see anything but what is Real. Love does not judge and sees only innocence. Love is attracted to Itself and joins with Love everywhere. Love is one so it is eternally at peace. Fear is inconceivable in the oneness of Love.

Today we choose to let the Voice for Love show us the presence of Love everywhere.

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