Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Neutralizing the Ego’s Defenses

The Holy Spirit is not delayed in His teaching by your mistakes. He can be held back only by your unwillingness to let them go. Let us therefore be determined… to be willing to forgive ourselves for our lapses in diligence…. This tolerance for weakness will enable us to overlook it, rather than give it power to delay our learning. If we give it power to do this, we are regarding it as strength, and are confusing strength with weakness.

When you fail to comply with the requirements of this course, you have merely made a mistake. This calls for correction, and for nothing else. To allow a mistake to continue is to make additional mistakes, based on the first and reinforcing it. It is this process that must be laid aside, for it is but another way in which you would defend illusions against the truth.

Let all these errors go by recognizing them for what they are. They are attempts to keep you unaware you are one Self, united with your Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. This is the truth, and nothing else is true. Today we will affirm this truth again, and try to reach the place in you in which there is no doubt that only this is true.

I am one Self, united with my Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 95, W-pI.95.8-10;11:2. See also ACIM Lesson 95 Insights.)

The ego feeds on guilt. It constantly searches for justification of guilt. This is because its seeming existence depends on keeping guilt in the mind, tying our perceptions to the past. Without the past, the ego would not seem to exist, for only the oneness of Love is now.

We need to practice applying the Course in our lives because we have a long-established habit of dwelling on the past, looking for guilt. This habit comes from our allegiance to the ego. Habits can be broken. But diligence is required to interrupt the habitual scripts that deny the truth, and turn to the Holy Spirit for a new vision that recognizes the innocence of Love’s oneness everywhere. This practice will help us identify with the one Self we are, united with our Creator.

The ego has a defense against this practice. It takes awhile to replace the old habits which have ruled our minds. We often have lapses in our practice. The ego uses these lapses to reinforce guilt, pointing out our weakness and inconsistency.

This is a time for us to redouble our practice by reminding ourselves that, in truth, we are one Self, united with our Creator. We need to let go of the lapses by recognizing that they cannot change the truth of what we are. The lapses have had no effect and are therefore not justification for guilt. Thus we neutralize the ego’s defense and continue on our journey of awakening with the Holy Spirit.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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