Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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How to Bring Joy to the World

You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God’s plan. God’s messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father’s gifts as theirs.

Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you.

He will be there. And you can reach Him now. …What foolish goal can keep you from success when He Who calls to you is God Himself?

He will be there. You are essential to His plan. You are His messenger today. And you must find what He would have you give. …It is your Self Who calls to you today. And it is Him you answer, every time you tell yourself you are essential to God’s plan for the salvation of the world. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 100, W-pI.100.4;8:5;9:1-2,5;10:1-4,6-7. See also ACIM Lesson 100 Insights.)

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.” (Lesson 121) It is our judgments that make us sad, angry, guilty and sick. It is our judgments that draw a veil across the face of Christ. It is our judgments that separate us from God and every brother.

God’s plan for our salvation is His gift to help us release our judgments — the Holy Spirit, our Guide to happiness. The practice of bringing all our judgments to the Holy Spirit is the path to accepting God’s Will for our perfect happiness. As we learn not to make any judgments on our own, our joy increases.

The appearances in the world have less and less effect on our happiness. We learn that God is always there for us. His Will is ours. The attraction of specialness fades, for we experience increasing joy as we let Holy Spirit’s judgment help us look past appearances to the eternal presence of God’s Love. This is our purpose. This is how we bring joy to the world and ourselves.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiveness Through the Holy Spirit’s Help

Atonement is for all, because it is the way to undo the belief that anything is for you alone. To forgive is to overlook. Look, then, beyond error and do not let your perception rest upon [error], for you will believe what your perception holds. Accept as true only what your brother is [the Son of God], if you would know yourself. Perceive what he is not and you cannot know what you are, because you see him falsely. Remember always that your Identity [as the Son of God] is shared, and that Its sharing is Its reality.

Forgiveness that is learned of me does not use fear to undo fear. Nor does it make real the unreal and then destroy it. Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in [error’s] realness enter your mind…. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are nonexistent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out all [error’s] effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and proves it.

Follow the Holy Spirit’s teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. …Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy Spirit’s plan of salvation, recognizing that you do not understand what it is. (A Course in Miracles, T-9.IV.1;5;6:1,3. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

We are not asked to deny that we perceive fear and guilt, attack and death, in the world. But we are directed to ask the Holy Spirit’s help to correct our perception. The Holy Spirit knows that nothing perceived through the ego thought system of separation exists. When we are willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to correct our perception, we will learn that our perception of harm is merely the effect of a false belief.

With Holy Spirit’s help, we are able to overlook the effects of ego beliefs because He shows us that these seeming effects are not true. With the Holy Spirit’s help we overlook what is untrue and has no real effects to see the Son of God instead of identifying with the ego. Each time we accept the Holy Spirit’s help, the seeming reality of the ego’s world fades and we recognize with increasing certainty that only the oneness of Love is real.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Transformation Through Holy Spirit’s Vision

What has no meaning cannot be perceived. And meaning always looks within to find itself, and then looks out. All meaning that you give the world outside must thus reflect the sight you saw within; or better, if you saw at all or merely judged against. Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations that show you all the fearful outcomes of imagined sin [separation] into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are His substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego’s purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step away from sin, reminding you that it is not reality which frightens you, and that the errors which you made can be corrected.

And after vision, who is there who could refuse what must come after? Think but an instant just on this; you can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see. (A Course in Miracles, T-20.VIII.10;11:2-4. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

If we believe that separation is real, when we look within, we see a separate identity housed in a body, capable of harming and being harmed, that will end in death. We then project a world of separate images that we must defend against or try to protect from decay and death. These are the nightmares projected from the split mind that believes separation is real.

The Holy Spirit sees only our wholeness, our changeless Identity that is Love and nothing else. He sees only innocence because what is changeless and One can neither harm nor be harmed. He offers us His vision in place of our mad hallucinations. With His vision our perception of a guilty and fearful “reality” is replaced by the calm, loving and joyful reality of our Home in Heaven.

Our minds are transformed by this vision. We need only be willing to accept His vision and our nightmares will disappear into the nothingness from which they came. Today we offer all our perceptions to the Holy Spirit with willingness to receive His vision as our own.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing Our Life in God

Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God’s Son, nor the power the god he worships has over him. For he places himself at the altar of his god [the god he believes in], whether it be the god he made or the God Who created him. That is why his slavery is as complete as his freedom, for he will obey only the god he accepts. The god of crucifixion [ego] demands that he crucify [judge himself and others], and his worshippers obey. In his name they crucify themselves, believing that the power of the Son of God is born of sacrifice and pain. The God of resurrection demands nothing, for He does not will to take away [his unity with his Creator]. He does not require obedience, for obedience implies submission. He would only have you learn your will [which is God’s Wiil] and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom.

Resurrection must compel your allegiance gladly, because it is the symbol of joy. Its whole compelling power lies in the fact that [resurrection] represents what you want to be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it can be offered you through the grace of God. And you can accept it by His grace, for God is gracious to His Son, accepting him without question as His Own. Who, then, is your own? The Father has given you all that is His, and He Himself is yours with them. Guard them in their resurrection, for otherwise you will not awake in God, safely surrounded by what is yours forever. (A Course in Miracles, T-11.VI.5-6. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

The ego is the idea of sacrificing our oneness with our Creator in order to establish its own domain that denies God’s Love. When we accept the ego thought system, we experience the ego’s images and projections as real. This makes our true Will to remain one with our Creator, to be Love, unknown to us. Because of our belief in the ego, we follow the ego’s dictates. The ego’s ultimate “proof” is the appearance of death. When we believe in the ego, death, disease, depression, fear and guilt seem real. That is the effect of the power of our devotion to the ego.

Our devotion to the ego has not changed the Son God created. God gave His gift of all of Himself and all His attributes to His Son eternally. God belongs to us just as we belong to Him. His Love is ours as we Love our Creator. No matter what devotion we give to a false God, our Creator has not changed His mind about us. All that He gave is still ours and will be forever.

As we realize that our only happiness comes from accepting God’s gifts, we recognize that our true Will is the same as God’s Will. All we really want is the gifts God gave us and that are still ours. When we make this choice, we are resurrected from the ego’s dedication to death to the Life we live in God. We make this choice each time we choose to accept the vision offered us through His Voice in place of the illusions of death the ego offers.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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We Are Safe and Innocent in God’s Love

The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy. It is the answer. The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming. You prepare your mind for [the holy instant] only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you cannot do more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He does not ask, or you will add the ego to Him and confuse the two. He asks but little. It is He Who adds the greatness and the might. He joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand. It is your realization that you need do so little that enables Him to give so much.

Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without [the shadows] you would not need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that you must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to be.

I who am host to God am worthy of Him.
He Who established His dwelling place in me created it as He would have it be.
It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I do not interfere with His plan to restore to me my own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.
I need add nothing to His plan.
But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it. (A Course in Miracles, T-18.IV.1-2;5:9-13. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

Our true Self was created one with God. We do not need to make ourselves ready for Him because He is already in us. There is no separation between what God created and What He is.

The ego is the wish to be separate from God and make a domain it can rule as its own. This wish can never make reality, but it can deny the Light of Truth. The ego’s wish can only seem to make a different reality by hiding from the Light. The ego’s projections of images in the world can only be perceived in the darkness of the ego thought system.

The ego’s dark thoughts of separation are dispelled in the Light of the holy instant. We welcome the holy instant by our willingness to let the Holy Spirit correct our mistaken perceptions. Our willingness to offer all our perceptions to Him for clarification opens the door to the holy instant, which reminds us that we are still united with our Source, safe and innocent in His Love.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning that Guilt Is Never Justified

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When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place [in your mind]. In understanding this you are saved.

The seeming cost of accepting today’s idea [My salvation comes from me] is this: It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace or upset you in any way.”

My salvation comes from me. It cannot come from anywhere else.

Devote a few minutes, with your eyes closed, to reviewing some of the external places where you have looked for salvation in the past;—in other people, in possessions, in various situations and events, and in self-concepts that you sought to make real. Recognize that it is not there, and tell yourself:

My salvation cannot come from any of these things. My salvation comes from me and only from me.

Now we will try again to reach the light in you, which is where your salvation is. You cannot find it in the clouds that surround the light, and it is in them you have been looking for it. It is not there. It is past the clouds and in the light beyond. Remember that you will have to go through the clouds before you can reach the light. But remember also that you have never found anything in the cloud patterns you imagined that endured, or that you wanted. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 70, W-pI.70.1:5-2:2;7:3-8:6. See also ACIM Lesson 70 Insights.)

The most empowering idea we can learn is that both the source of guilt and the means to release it are in our own mind. No longer are we at the mercy of events in the world, the behavior of others, our circumstances or even the thoughts that drift through our minds. All perception of guilt comes from the fevered imagination of the ego’s belief in separation and its attempt to make separation seem real. The truth of the Self we are remains free of guilt, safe in the oneness of God’s Love.

God placed the means for release from guilt in our minds. It is the Light of the Holy Spirit, the Light of Truth. It contains the strength of God, given us to support our willingness to see past the clouds of ego images to the truth that none of our imagined images in the world can harm anyone or ourselves. We remain God’s one Son, changeless and unchangeable.

We claim this truth by offering all our perceptions that disturb our peace to the Light of the Holy Spirit in our minds. As we accept the Holy Spirit’s help, it becomes clear that what we thought justified guilt and fear had no effect whatsoever. We see that nothing has happened to change the truth of What we are, at one with God.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Letting Go of Guilt

As long as you believe that guilt is justified in any way, in anyone, whatever he may do, you will not look within, where you would always find Atonement. The end of guilt will never come as long as you believe there is a reason for it. For you must learn that guilt is always totally insane, and has no reason. The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel reality. If guilt were real, Atonement would not be. The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, not to establish them as real and then forgive them.

The Holy Spirit does not keep illusions in your mind to frighten you, and show them to you fearfully to demonstrate what He has saved you from. What He has saved you from is gone. Give no reality to guilt, and see no reason for it. The Holy Spirit does what God would have Him do, and has always done so. He has seen separation, but knows of union. He teaches healing, but He also knows of creation [extending Love]. He would have you see and teach as He does, and through Him. Yet what He knows you do not know, though it is yours. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.X.6-7. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

The Course tells us that in truth, there is nothing to forgive. But while guilt seems justified, we need to learn to forgive the mistaken belief that guilt is justified. The Holy Spirit’s function is to teach us that there is never any justification for guilt. When we bring any perception that seems to justify guilt to the Holy Spirit, He will teach us to recognize that our perception is based on a false image, a false belief.

As we accept His vision, which always sees past illusions, we learn that what seemed to upset us did not really happen. It only seemed to happen in the world of illusions. It is the Holy Spirit’s gift of vision that helps us recognize illusions are really nothing and have no effect in truth. When we recognize this, the illusion disappears and forgiveness is automatic for we know there is nothing to forgive.

The practice of letting Holy Spirit show us what is real and what is illusion will ultimately lead us to the Atonement. And we will remember that we are at Home in the Heart of Love, safe and innocent.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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