A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 215 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 215 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.”
“Love is the way I walk in gratitude.”

Whenever I identify with the body as what I am, I am insane. But I have a Guide in my mind That will help me when I get lost. For this I am eternally grateful.

This world is a dream I have made up to make separation appear to be real. I need the Holy Spirit to lead me Home. I need a helping Hand when I get lost in thinking the world is real. I am so grateful the Holy Spirit is always there whenever I open to Its healing Love. To the Holy Spirit there is only one real purpose in this world, and that is to contribute to the awakening of the one Sonship from the dream of separation.

I give thanks to the Holy Spirit for Its patience, wisdom, humor and constant Love. When I give my insane thoughts to Him, He always shines them away. My constant Companion always remembers the truth. He shines a light on all my insane perceptions, if I let Him.

The Holy Spirit is the reminder of God’s Love in my mind. While I think I am in this dream world of separation and believe it is real, I need a reminder of the truth. I am grateful the Holy Spirit is ever present with His message of Love, brought directly from God to me.

God’s Love has never ceased and never will. If I feel unloved or unloving, I need the Holy Spirit’s gentle reminder that I am still Love, as God created me. To receive His reminder, I must be willing to bring all my unloving, fearful and guilty thoughts to Him. He will guide me to true perception to see they are based on illusion, so I can let them go easily, with a quiet sigh of relief, and walk on with Him in Love and gratitude.

Today I will practice once again being mindful of my thoughts and taking each one that does not bring peace to the Holy Spirit. The world I have made has not brought me happiness. I am willing to receive a new perception that guides me out of this mistaken world and into the universe of Light. Only here can lasting happiness be found. Only here is where I truly want to be.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 214 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 214 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.”
“I place the future in the Hands of God.”

Placing the future in the Hands of God is the same as placing my trust in God instead of the ego. It is giving my life to God and letting the Holy Spirit write the script instead of letting the script be written by the voice of fear and separation — the ego. This “life” of separation is a dream in truth. There is no past and there is no future. The ego thought system always wants to make time appear to be real. It does this by projecting a future that is based on the past.

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, knows there is no past and there is no future. The Holy Spirit guides us all to extend Love now. The Holy Spirit knows of only wholeness or oneness, now and forever. Placing my future in the Hands of Love will bring me only the experience of Love, the experience of my true Self. Because only Love is real, the only thing I can experience in truth is Love.

If I want something else, I will experience something else, but that does not make the experience real. The only thing I ever choose between is Love and illusions. That which I desire, I will experience because of the power of my mind.

Today my practice is to open my mind to God, to Love, and God will do the rest. That is how I place the future in the Hands of God. What is my choice today? What I choose I will experience. To choose Love, I need only remember to open my mind to the awareness of Love’s Presence. I need but ask myself, “What is really the truth?” What I ask for I will receive.

Today I practice opening my mind to Love, to God. What could be a better choice? This is the choice for happiness. This is the choice for letting go of pain and vulnerability. This is the choice for true power and the choice to let go of belief in weakness. Today I place the future in the Hands of God.

The ego does not trust the future. It believes the future will repeat the past and the past has taught that nothing is reliable. Everything changes and will not last. Since the ego is the rejection of God, it definitely does not trust God. So the ego is always in a catch-22 situation. It does not want the past to be repeated, but it believes that the future will be like the past. Because the ego believes only in its own insane thought system, it cannot trust anything from outside that thought system. And so it seems to be trapped in an endless cycle of insanity.

Today we are given the means to step out of the cycle. We need only place the future in God’s Hands and the cycle of insanity is broken. Putting the future in God’s Hands takes a heavy burden off our minds. We no longer need to spend our time making plans to protect ourselves from a thousand different eventualities. We are free to experience the present fully. Without concern for the future, we no longer need to dwell on the past. Because the past is not here, when I stop dwelling on it, I no longer bring it with me, and so it is gone.

The present moment is clean and pure, free of the false images of the past. Now I am able to see Love and nothing else, because Love is all there is to see. When I place the future in God’s Hands, my step is light, my heart is filled with joy. Defenses are laid down and I embrace my brother, who is one with me.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 213 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 213 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.”
“All things are lessons God would have me learn.”

It seems most of the lessons we learn in life are learned from pain. Our lessons teach us what we don’t want to do in order to avoid pain more than what to do to experience happiness. With this as our history, the statement, “All things are lessons God would have me learn” can easily carry the connotation that God’s lessons are painful. But this interpretation is simply our own projection of the past. God’s lessons are miracles that free us from our self-taught lessons of pain. God would have us learn lessons that lead us out of pain.

Yet the ego whispers and sometimes proclaims loudly that God’s lessons require sacrifice. The ego would want us to believe we must give up what is valuable if we are to learn of God. From the ego’s perspective, this is correct, because what the ego values is really nothing, meaningless.

If we are to experience what is truly meaningful — the Love of God — we do have to give up our investment in the empty promises of specialness offered by the ego. But we give up nothing in order to gain everything. This the ego does not tell us because when we give up the desire for specialness, we give up the ego. Without our investment in the values of the ego, it has no power, no substance. The ego’s only “control” over us comes from our attachment to the ego’s teachings.

We are not asked to give up this attachment in one gut wrenching battle in which all we think is important is ripped from our clutching hands. Rather, every moment is offered, gently and lovingly, as a lesson from God in which we learn to see what is valueless and what has true value. This is the miracle, the transformed perception.

When we recognize what is valueless, there is no sense of loss in laying it down. It is done with happy laughter, for we already see the joyous alternative God has offered in its place. Today I resign as my own teacher. I choose to learn God’s lessons that I may be free to live in His Love and peace.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 212 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 212 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.”
“I have a function God would have me fill.”

The function of Love is to extend Love. God created me as Love and so my function is to extend Love. I don’t extend Love when I don’t remember What I am. I don’t remember What I am when I attempt to replace What I am with illusions of separation from What I am. I am set free when I am willing to lay these illusions down.

When the ego thoughts are quieted, God, Which is Love, is there. God is the only Reality. God is freedom. God is joy. God is oneness and Love. If I am not recognizing this, I will feel bound and limited and separate from my Identity. In truth, God is my constant Companion because I am God’s extension. It is only when I return to my original function of extending Love that I find the freedom and peace that is in me.

I get what I desire and focus on. Today I seek only to fulfill my function as an extension of God’s Love. Only this brings me happiness. Only this sets me free. Letting go of illusions and extending only Love is my function today.

The Course says forgiveness is Love’s reflection in this world. Thus forgiveness is the way I fulfill my function in this world. Forgiveness is letting go of illusions. It clears the way for Love to be extended. It frees me to be the Love I was created to be.

Illusions are vain because they have no real effect. But if I believe illusions are real, I will believe reality is unreal and so the reality of Love will be lost to me. It is impossible to believe in two realities. Whatever I believe to be real blocks everything else from my awareness. If I want to experience the peace and joy and Love of God, I must let go of my belief in another reality in which God (Love) is not welcome.

This world was made as a place where God is not welcome. To be free of it, I must forgive myself for imagining a world without God and I must forgive God for not giving me what He could not give. God could not give me special love because Love is given equally by Its very nature.

When I experience true forgiveness, I experience an outpouring of Love, a sense of unity and joining with my brother. I see us as the same and my heart is filled with joy and gratitude. When I fall back into old habits of judgment, that joyous feeling fades. But the memory of it reminds me I really do want to fulfill the function God has given me. That is where I find freedom and joy.

Each experience of forgiveness strengthens my resolve to take every thought of condemnation, every judgment, to the Holy Spirit for Him to shine His loving Light upon it so I can see the reality beyond the illusion I mistakenly believed. Thus I fulfill the function God would have me fill and I receive His gift of happiness, which I cannot help but share with everyone.

True happiness is sharing. Holy Spirit, help me see with Your vision today that I might remember the freedom of being the Love I was created to be.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 211 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 211 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.”
“I am the holy Son of God Himself.”

What stands out to me in this lesson are the words, “in silence and in true humility…” This reminds me that in order to seek God’s glory and see it everywhere as my one Self, I must become aware of the ego’s chatter and be willing to let it go. I must let go of trying to make something other than God’s universal Love real.

“In silence” means choosing to quiet the ego mind and in true humility recognize all ego thoughts of individuality really mean nothing. Thinking I can really make something other than universal Love is arrogance. True humility does not try to imagine or make real something other than the one Self as we were created. This lesson helps me practice letting go of these absurd ideas of separation from unity, from our communion in God. Today’s lesson helps me remember we all are always in communion with our one Self.

My practice today is being willing to remember what is real. My job today is to practice true humility. My job today is to let the truth return to my awareness. The truth is not hiding. My job today is to let go of my denial of the truth of our one, universal Self. My job today is to remember I am not a body. I am free. I remain as God created me. The truth is true and nothing else is true.

I am willing to let my mind be filled with awareness of God’s Presence today. What a wonderful practice. What a wonderful opportunity I have today and every day.

This lesson teaches the opposite of what most of us believe about ourselves. “Holy” and “glory” are not words we associate with what we think we are. Guilty and unworthy seem much more appropriate to us because of what we think we are.

Yet these attributes we believe about ourselves must be arrogant because this lesson tells us that to recognize our holiness and glory we must seek in true humility. This is the opposite of what the ego teaches, that humility is to see ourselves as debased and unworthy of anything but condemnation.

Gratefully the Course teaches us that God does not and never has condemned. His Love for us remains unchanged by any of our wild imaginings of a separate self. So today’s lesson is another step in the reversal of the beliefs I have held about myself. It leads me toward recognition of What I am in truth. In that recognition I see my brothers as my Self, one with me, sharing God’s Love and Light, sharing His glory and holiness. I can only recognize this as I recognize my brothers are one with me. Seeing myself as separate or alone blocks all awareness of my holiness and unity with God.

To see this unity, I must let go of all judgment. That is why it is so important to take each thought of condemnation to the Holy Spirit and be willing to receive His vision in place of that false perception.

Holy Spirit I open my mind to you today, that I might see the holiness and glory in my brother and therefore in myself. Help me see past body images to the Love that is the essence of everyone and everything, for it is this I desire to recognize in myself. Thank you Holy Spirit for Your strength and support and trust in me.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 210 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 210 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I choose the joy of God instead of pain.”

What stands out to me in this lesson is that God’s Will for me is joy and only joy. If I am not experiencing joy, I must be choosing against God’s Will. Pain is my own idea, not a Thought of God. All the discomfort I experience — stress, anxiety, impatience, feeling hurried — are all the result of choosing against God’s Will. Choosing God’s Will must bring me joy because that is what His Will is.

Is it a sacrifice to accept the joy of God? Part of me must think it is because part of my mind tenaciously hangs on to this image I have made of myself that never feels quite secure or safe and seems to need to be constantly alert for hazards of some kind. This image of a vulnerable self hides from my awareness the Self that knows and is the joy of God.

The joy of God is already in me. In fact, the joy of God is me. I don’t need to do anything to experience His joy. I only need to stop maintaining a false image that obscures awareness of my true Self. That is why I must continue to repeat, “I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.” As I reinforce this focus more and more, the false image of a limited self softens and fades. The way is gradually cleared to see the joyous Self God created one with Him. As I withdraw identification with the limitations of a body, I am free to choose the joy of God instead of pain.

I am willing today to continue to practice remembering I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me. I can choose the joy of God instead of pain. This choice is simply the choice to be what I am in truth. I am deeply grateful for these lessons, which help me release a false self-image and clear the way for return to my Self as God created me.

This morning I woke up with a sore muscle in my shoulder. In today’s lesson I am reminded that pain is my own idea. It is not a Thought of God. This is one more place where I need to open my mind to the healing presence of the Holy Spirit. The pain in my shoulder is an effect of a thought apart from Him and from His Will. My job now is to open my mind to the Holy Spirit’s healing perceptions and let myself be led to a change of mind.

On my own, I do not know. The Holy Spirit is the healer and the healing needs to happen in my mind. The sore shoulder is merely an effect of a thought still residing in my mind. Pain is not of God. It is through forgiveness or letting go of some form of thought of separation that needs to be loosened and undone in my mind.

Holy Spirit, You know the way. I am willing to relax and open to Your healing Light. This is what I choose instead of pain. I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me. Today I choose to remember this and return to it again and again to heal my mind.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 209 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 209 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I feel the Love of God within me now.”

I feel the Love of God when I recognize that the Love of God is everywhere and is eternal. The Love of God is all That is. Receiving and giving the Love of God is all that can be truly received and given. Inherent in accepting the Love of God is giving the Love of God. Inherent in accepting and giving the Love of God is feeling the Love of God.

There is only one Love and this Love is universal. It is continuous. It is always present. It is all that is real. We all are mind that lives in the eternal and ever-present Love of God. Experiencing the Love of God is what is natural. In fact it is the only natural thing in the world. It is the only reality. Anything outside of God’s Love is illusion.

Accepting and giving the Love of God is really all we ever could do because It is all we ever Are. It is our life. It is our totality. It is our very beingness. It is our one Self. Am I willing to accept and give my one Self today? Today is for practice in accepting and giving the Love of God. Nothing else is more important because nothing else is real.

When I identify with being a body in a world of separate bodies and forms, I am identifying with the ego’s attempt to limit Love. The ego is the idea of rejecting the equality, the all inclusiveness and limitlessness of God’s Love. This is why it is important to proclaim again and again until I fully believe that I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.

Love cannot be limited and be Itself. Thus I cannot feel the Love of God within me as long as I believe in a limited image of myself. Because God’s Love is limitless, it is His Love within me that sets me free.

Love is forever extending. To know my freedom in God’s Love I must extend His Love, equally and unequivocally. That is the only way Love can be extended. It is the only way I can know God’s Love, feel It and know my Self.

The body is not what I am. I do not have to accept the ego’s purpose of limitation for the body. As I dis-identify with the body as what I am, I am free to give it a different purpose. As I strengthen my identification with the Love of God as What I am, the body’s purpose now becomes to be the means by which I extend His Love to all my brothers.

The body then becomes His Voice, His hands, His feet to carry and express His Love to all who believe they are limited by a body. As I use the body to teach Love, I learn that I am Love. The Love of God within me sets me free. I remember I am still as God created me.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 208 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 208 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“The peace of God is shining in me now.”

This world was made as a fence to keep God out. One of the chief ego mechanisms to keep awareness of God’s Presence hidden is to keep us preoccupied with all the forms found in this world of separation. As long as the ego can keep us busy with endless pursuits that cannot bring us the peace of God, the ego thought system remains in tact.

In this world, most, if not all, of the hours of the day are spent directly or indirectly taking care of the body, which we believe is our identity. We are either working to earn money to pay for food, clothing or housing for the body, or we are spending time giving it rest, bathing it, exercising it, preening it, trying to make it “acceptable,” whatever that means to us.

When we are not actively involved in these things, we worry about things that could happen to the body, so we build defenses to protect against what might happen. This image that we have of ourselves is so fragile that it seems it can be damaged by as little as a word or a momentary glance, which can throw us into fear or guilt in an instant. All of this keeps our attention on a frantic and frenzied agenda to protect what we think we are.

Yet this image has nothing to do with our true reality, with our Self as God created us. This is why we are asked to repeat many times a day for 20 days, “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” This repetition will help us loosen our identification with the false image we have held of ourselves. Each time we can take a moment to be still, to set aside the frenzy of the world ever so little, we move a step closer to recognizing the peace of God that is shining in us right now.

As we can still our minds and feel the peace of God, we feel His safety and His strength. The body does not need our protection. It will reflect the safety we know when we remember the peace of God that is shining in our hearts.

We are not asked to give up our identification with the body in one fell swoop, for the seeming sacrifice would be too frightening. We are simply asked to practice giving our attention to the fact that we are not a body. This practice will gently wean us from thinking we are a body to recognizing that we are in fact Love’s extension, wholly safe in Love.

While we remain in the dream of this world, we will continue doing things to care for the body. But we will recognize more and more that many of the things we thought would keep us safe or make us feel better really accomplish nothing. And so our life will become simpler and easier. Gradually more of our time is used for awakening and serving the awakening of others. Our brothers become less and less adversaries and more and more seen as friends and companions, helping us return Home. I am grateful to be reminded that the peace of God is shining in me now.

The merry-go-round of this world will continue to go round and round until we choose to stop it. On this merry-go-round it feels like a swirl of activity, but we are really going nowhere. We are going round and round, repeating the past over and over until we decide to step off and give our mind a rest from the ego thought system. Once we step off, there is quiet. There is stillness. We can experience the peace of God. We can hear the Holy Spirit and be aware of Its returning us to the truth.

The doorway through which we return Home is through quieting our minds. When our minds are filled with the ego thought system, there is no room left to feel the peace of God. The peace of God is felt when all that is laid down. The peace of God is eternal. It is always there, waiting for our return. The peace of God is what we are.

We may step back on the merry-go-round, but this time we have a new purpose. Everything is given a new meaning. We see everything differently. We realize how important it is to frequently step off and go to that quiet place in our minds where our Holy Spirit brings us peace and understanding.

Our gratitude overflows as we learn to let go of fear thoughts and return to the Love we are. We remember we are not a body, we are free. Nothing has changed. We are eternally extensions of Love and nothing else. Just Love eternally. In truth, we do live happily ever after as one, as Love.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 207 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 207 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I bless the world because I bless myself.”

The words that stand out to me in this lesson are, “accept God’s boundless Love for me.” This world is an attempt to limit God’s Love. Bodies were made to separate off parts of God into isolated individual segments which do not share all of God’s Love. The separate identities we call bodies cannot know boundless Love because the bodies themselves are boundaries.

To be boundless is to be united with all. It is to be one. Identifying with the body automatically brings with it a belief in being unworthy of all God’s boundless Love. As I am able to accept more of God’s boundless Love, I bless the world because I bless myself. It is not God Who limits Love. It is simply my mistaken belief in an image of myself that could never be true or real.

The Course is teaching me how to forgive myself for having made up this image and let it go. As I let go of the false image, I open my heart to recognize the Presence of God that never left. God is truly in everything I see. God’s Presence has nothing to do with form. God is in everything I see because God is boundless and is therefore everywhere. To experience this, I must let go of all meanings I have given forms. These meanings interfere with Christ’s vision, which sees God’s Love everywhere.

Holy Spirit, help me bless myself today by helping me let go of the false meanings and images I have made in this world so I may see the Light of God where it is, which is everywhere. Thus I will bless the world because I bless myself.

God (Love) abides in my heart. Love abides in everyone’s heart. This is what is real. For me to recognize this is to bless myself and my brother. I need but turn to Love and I will see this is true.

As I turn to Love, the false concepts of bodies and differences fall away. As I turn to Love, my belief in weakness and separation from God falls away. As I turn to Love, I see my innate strength. I feel God’s Love. Because God’s Love is continuous, it is everywhere. The false images disappear in the ever expanding extension of God’s Love. Opening to this truth is blessing the world and blessing myself.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 206 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 206 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“Salvation of the world depends on me.”

I will not see the world as free until I see myself as free. That is why salvation of the world depends on me. To be free means to be without limit. God’s gifts are given without limit and so His gifts are the gift of freedom.

To know His gifts I must give them as they were given, freely and without limit. If I try to be selective about who will receive my gifts, I have lost awareness of What I am as God created me. God created me limitless and free. I cannot limit my gifts without also limiting myself.

I was created as Love, which by Its nature gives without limit. I cannot know the Love I am if I believe some are more worthy of Love than others. If I believe withholding love in certain situations is justified, then I have forgotten what Love is and What I am. Where God would have His gifts be is everywhere, because He is limitless. That is why it is important for me to extend Love all the time to all. That is how I save the world and myself.

Today I ask the Holy Spirit to help me see with His vision and offer Love in every circumstance so I may remember I am not a body I am free. I am still as God created me.

As an extension of God’s Love, we have one function, and that function is to extend God’s universal Love as our Father does. Our function is not to try to change Love, but to be one with It.

In Lesson 186 Jesus tells us, “If God’s Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that the whole depends on you, be sure that it is so…. Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice Which tells them what they are, and what to do.” (5:4,6)

We are learning we cannot fail when we ask only for God’s Will for us. God’s Will for us is shared by everyone. We are all in the same boat together. We are all Love and nothing else. We all are the salvation of the world as we wake up to the eternal truth.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 205 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 205 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I want the peace of God.”

Behind all the false values found in this world are the true values we really want. Behind every conflict and underneath all the drama and masks found within the belief in separation, we really want the peace of God.

If we are taking directions from the ego, our efforts to find the peace of God will be directed where it cannot be found, in keeping with the ego’s goal of seek and do not find. Whether somebody murders or tortures or argues with a spouse, all of this is an attempt to solve our problems with the ego, and without the peace of God.

The desire to hide from the peace of God is the underlying motive for all our living here. The world was made to be a place where God could not enter. The search for peace in the world takes on twisted forms that look like war and conflict. This is because the ego teaches us that we can find salvation through the elimination of our enemies or some other external change in circumstance. It does not want us to know the peace of God is already in us, given us by God in our creation. The ego thrives on conflict and perceives the peace of God as its enemy.

That is why it is so important that we take time each day to practice becoming quiet, stilling our minds and opening our hearts to the peace of God given us before time began. Each instant we are able to set the ego aside, to let go of our identification with a separate self-identity for a moment, we experience a taste of the peace of God, our one goal.

Today I will walk hand in hand with the Holy Spirit and let Him guide my way. I trust He will lead me toward the peace of God, for He shares my one goal with me. He is not deceived by the myriad forms of this world. He knows where the peace of God is and will lead me there. I need but follow. I offer Him my willingness and ask for His strength to magnify my willingness so that I may truly remember I am not a body, I am free. I am still as God created me.

Early in the Text Jesus tells us the ego becomes strong in strife. This is why the ego loves to make up stories of conflict and tension and war. It loves to make up stories of death, suffering, weakness and vulnerability to outside forces.

If we truly opened to the peace of God, all the false stories would be seen as the false mental constructs they are. We would laugh at them because we would recognize they could never be true. We would remember there could be nothing that replaces the peace of God. We would remember we are the peace of God. We would not try to make something else real and try to be what we are not.

I have reached the place where I am willing to give up most overt forms of conflict in my search for peace. If I do feel angry or hurt or guilty, I give it to Holy Spirit as fast as I can. Sometimes I take it back, but I keep trying.

The ego finds ways, though, to divert me. I stay very busy. There are so many things to do. I say it would be a luxury to experience boredom, but if stillness looks imminent, I become uncomfortable and quickly find something else that must be done. I have convinced myself that this kind of activity is a virtue and to be otherwise would indicate laziness or lack of direction or something.

I am coming to understand that all of this frantic activity is my way of avoiding peace. It is like I am afraid to stand still; afraid to let my mind be still. I haven’t been able to release this behavior yet, but I am working on it. I truly do want the peace of God.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 204 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 204 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“The Name of God is my inheritance.”

It is helpful to me to look at the symbolism of the “Name” of God. When a botanist identifies the name of a plant, that name is a reference to all the characteristics of that plant, including its heritage. When that plant reproduces, the reproduction is given the same name. So a botanist, when told the name of a plant, knows the full description of that plant. In the same way, the Name of God encompasses the full description of God, all that God is. It does not matter what word we use as the Name of God. The word is a symbol of all that God is.

Since the Name of God is my inheritance, His Name also represents all that I am. This is a very different image than I have held of myself. All God is, I am. To the ego, this statement is arrogant. But the real arrogance is the denial of this statement, because it is saying I know better than God what I am. God gave me His Name and all of His characteristics. It is time to let go of the arrogance of the ego that refuses God’s gifts.

Holy Spirit, help me today to see the Name of God in everyone, including myself. Help me see past the false images made to hide the reality in everyone. I am willing to accept the Name of God as my inheritance, for I recognize I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.

What stands out to me in this lesson is that I am not slave to time. I am unbound by laws which rule the world of sick illusions. So many times I do think I am slave to time and I do think I am bound by laws of the world. This means I still have a lot of mind healing work to do. This means I still need to continue to deny the denial of the truth. Accepting sick illusions is really not helpful to me nor to anyone else. I do not need to continue doing this. I can step back from these beliefs and that is my practice today.

When I have an open mind, the Holy Spirit will help me by bringing in a new, unlimited perception. It is my job to keep my mind open and not repeat the past. The ego groove may be deep through many repetitions, but with the Holy Spirit’s help, I can step out of that ego groove. It takes my willingness to not assume anything. It takes my willingness to be led by the Holy Spirit.

Following the Holy Spirit’s lead, I find I am not bound to the laws of the world. I am under no laws but God’s. Why should I delay freedom? Why should I continue repeating sick illusions of separation? The time is now. The Holy Spirit will show me I am not slave to time. The Holy Spirit will make things simple. My job is to step back and listen. This is my practice today, for I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me. This is true now and forever.

Yes, I am under no laws but God’s and this is why my function is to have the willingness to surrender in each moment to the Voice Within me for everything. My only desire is to hear God’s Voice in every moment, to see with the Vision of Christ.

When I hear and see with the body’s ears and eyes, I am identifying with the body and then I do not know what anything is for, nor what anything means. When I rely on the Voice within, the Holy Spirit, for everything, I realize I am not a body, I am free, I am still as God created me. The name of God is my inheritance because God’s Voice lives in me. I know this is true. When I hear His Voice in every moment and see with His eyes, the Vision of Christ is given me. I then realize total oneness with all. God is all and so am I.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 203 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 203 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I call upon God’s Name and on my own.”

“I call upon God’s Name and on my own” is another way of reminding me I am not a body. If my name is the same as God’s Name, then I must share the same characteristics as God. God is not a body so I must not be a body. God is innocent and wholly loving, so I must be innocent and wholly loving.

To call upon God’s Name is to remind me of my Source and What I am. God has no fear, so fear must be alien to me as well. God does not condemn and so I must not condemn. Any image I believe about myself that is different from this is a false image that limits me and blinds me to the truth about myself.

To call upon God’s Name is to open my mind to receive the truth of What I am. This is what I truly desire at the core of my being. I truly want to remember What I am. This Self God created is where I find comfort and peace. It is the part of me that remembers God’s Name is my own, along with all my brothers. It is the part of me that sees only unity and therefore is perfectly safe always.

Holy Spirit, help me see with the vision of my Self. Help me see the loving innocence of my brother so I may recognize it in myself. Today I would receive Your meaning for everything I look upon. Help me be the Love I was created to be and see It everywhere. Help me answer every call for Love with Love and thereby teach myself that only Love is real.

God is universal. God is the truth of all that is real. When I forget God, I am forgetting my Source, my true Identity. When I forget my Source, I am dreaming a dream of being separate from What I truly am. The way out of this is to return to letting God back into my awareness. The way out of this is to be willing to wake up from the dream of separation.

Anything other than God is a dream. That is why remembering God is my deliverance. “I call upon God’s Name and on my own” helps me remember the truth. There is nothing other than God. That truth is my safety and my joy. Remembering this truth is my salvation.

I would remind myself of the truth frequently today. I would let my mind be healed of belief that anything other than God is real. This is how I rest in God today. This is how I wake up from the dream.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 202 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 202 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I will be still an instant and go home.”

I am in Heaven now. I am still as God created me. But I am still not aware of my Home as long as I choose to believe in separation. With the power of my mind, I experience a world of bodies and have forgotten my true Identity as an extension of God. Now I would reverse that. I would practice reinforcing the truth instead of the ego’s lies. I would practice opening to the Holy Spirit’s perception, Who sees past bodies to the Light of God that is always there.

Today’s practice helps me let go of identifying myself with a body. The more I repeat the words of today’s lesson, the more I let the truth sink in to my awareness. Repeating this lesson many times a day is very helpful. After a while it becomes an automatic thought. “I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.” It is like playing a piano where many, many repetitions help make it an automatic response.

I consider this series of lessons to be very important to my awakening. I have reinforced the ego for a long time. It is now time to reinforce the truth and awaken from dreaming of separation. I can still use the body for the Holy Spirit’s purposes, but I do not have to be lost in the dream. I do not have to think the dream is real. With the Holy Spirit’s guidance, I can see past the dream to oneness. I can find my Self.

Why would I not listen to the Voice for God in my mind That lovingly and gently calls me Home? Only fear would make me unwilling to listen. The fear is that my will and God’s Will are not the same and if I were to listen to His Voice, I would be called to sacrifice my will.

This is one of the ego’s central lies, for the ego is the idea of sacrifice and loss. As long as I think I am the ego, I think my will is in opposition to God. But each time I am able to allow myself to become peaceful for an instant and go Home to the loving Heart of God, my identification with the ego thought system is loosened. The more opportunities I give myself to experience an instant of peace in God, the less I am bound to the world’s thought system and the more real my Home in Heaven is to me.

Only my belief in another world makes Heaven seem distant and unreal to me. The simple practice of being still an instant to go Home is a gentle, step-by-step process of loosening the bonds I have placed on myself which bind me to a world of illusions of limitation that could never be real.

Today I will practice this lesson as often as I can to open my mind to the Holy Spirit’s Voice in my mind, for I know It leads me to the comfort and peace of God. It will help me remember I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Click here to read or listen to this ACIM Workbook Lesson online.

---

Tell a Friend about this article or send the link with a Tweet

Printable Page

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index
Listen to Lesson 201 Insights

ACIM Workbook Lesson 201 Insights

Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

To the Holy Spirit, what is true about one brother is true about every brother. There are no differences. There is no specialness in Holy Spirit’s sight.

Today my practice is to see every brother as the Holy Spirit sees him. That is how I return Home. That is how I remember the truth in myself. My brother is not his or her body. Everyone is free. Everyone is still as God created them. No one is their mask. No one is an individual ‘self.’

My lesson today is to trust the truth in my brother. I am learning to practice seeing past the false identity today and every day. This is my pathway Home to freedom. This is my pathway to happiness and everlasting peace. The truth of one united Mind is true and nothing else is true. I have another day before me to practice again remembering this truth.

In this world it seems impossible to really trust anyone. It seems there is always the possibility that their interests will conflict with mine in some way and a friend becomes an adversary. This is exactly why this lesson is needed. The reason we feel we cannot trust is because the trust is misplaced. Of course we cannot trust an illusion. Illusions can shift and change with the slightest whim. The body is an illusion. In this world, when we speak of trusting people, it is usually in terms of what they do with their bodies because we identify them with their bodies.

As I practice remembering that I am not a body, I am free, I am still as God created me, I must also remember the same is true about my brother. Then the most natural thing in the world is to trust my brother because I see him as one Mind — the same Mind as I am.

When I accept and know I am as God created me, I know I am absolutely trustworthy. What God creates is Love and nothing else, so I must be Love and nothing else. Love is forever Itself, unchanging, forever giving, eternally one. That is What I am.

Trust in Love is fully justified. And because What I am is What my brother is as well, trust in the truth about him is fully justified. If I am tempted to see him as anything other than Love, to identify him with his body, then it is time for me to declare, “This thought I do not want. I choose instead to trust my brother, who is one with me.” When I can do this without reservation of any kind, my heart will be filled with the joy and peace of God, for I will have remembered Him in my brother. Together we return Home.

The few sentences of this review lesson have the power to lead me Home. I need only accept them wholly, believe them to be true, and I will know my freedom. I will know my Identity as an extension of Love.

I was asking Holy Spirit for a way I could visualize being one with my brother. The phrase that came to me was “wearing my body loosely.” I thought of easily shrugging off my body as one would a cloak, but then what I saw was a body shaped mass of light. I am so attached to my body and to the idea of me as a body, I am having trouble releasing this idea.

I thought about myself as light. I saw a light switched on in a dark room. The light has no shape, it diffuses until stopped by something, like the wall. I turn on another light. I don’t see two separate rays of light. The light blends seamlessly. I can’t tell what light comes from which lamp. It is just light.

So I visualized myself shrugging off the body and appearing as formless light that just goes on and on. Other lights join me; my ex-husband, my daughter, my manicurist. As light, there were no personalities, no alcoholics, no Vietnamese; there was just light. Not my light and their light, just light.

When I first started learning this concept, it didn’t mean much to me. I read it and said, “OK, I believe this,” but I didn’t really know what it meant. As time went on, and I practiced it, it became more meaningful. Now, I feel like I am so close. I almost know; which means I almost accept because in reality, I have always known. I think I have resisted that knowledge because of body identification; because of specialness and because I wanted to hold onto the idea I am unique. I’ve been wearing my body tightly, like a woman in a girdle, uncomfortable but afraid of losing my shape if I remove it.

I am going to practice my lessons faithfully and trust that the Holy Spirit will support my efforts and I will succeed.

© 2003, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a Friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 11 of 25 pages ‹ First  < 9 10 11 12 13 >  Last ›

Click link to go to:
• • Lesson Index

This section has been viewed 8066386 times

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.