Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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A Practice That Welcomes Peace

In peace I was created. ²And in peace do I remain. ³It is not given me to change my Self. ⁴How merciful is God my Father, that when He created me He gave me peace forever. ⁵Now I ask but to be what I am. ⁶And can this be denied me, when it is forever true?

Father, I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation. ²What was given then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond all change. ³The peace in which Your Son was born into Your Mind is shining there unchanged. ⁴I am as You created me. ⁵I need but call on You to find the peace You gave. ⁶It is Your Will that gave it to Your Son. (A Course in Miracles, W-230.1–2. See also ACIM Lesson 230 Insights.)

It is fruitless to ask the ego how to find peace, although it is quick to offer its advice. If we feel stressed and seek help, the ego is first to tell us what to do. But its directions are always aligned with the ego’s goal of seek and do not find.

To find true and lasting peace we need to disengage from the ego. It does not know what peace is, for the ego is the idea of conflict. When we are willing to pause and quiet the chatter in our mind, we open the door to welcome the peace of God that is already in us.

God gave us the Holy Spirit to lead us to peace. He knows how to guide us out of the dream of conflict to remember the gift of peace that is forever ours. The simple practice of pausing to disengage from the ego and welcome the Holy Spirit’s help will free us to experience the peace that is our innate Being. Today is a good day to practice.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting Our Holiness Changes the World

Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. ²It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. ³Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator.

Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. ²Through your holiness the power of God is made available. ³And there is nothing the power of God cannot do. ⁴Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. ⁵It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else.

If you are holy, so is everything God created. ²You are holy because all things He created are holy.

…search your mind for any sense of loss or unhappiness of any kind as you see it.…[Say to yourself:]

⁵In the situation involving _________ in which I see myself, there is nothing that my holiness cannot do.
⁶In the situation involving _________ in which _________ sees himself, there is nothing my holiness cannot do. (A Course in Miracles, W-38.1:1–2:5;3:1-2;4:1,5-6. See also ACIM Lesson 38 Insights.)

Because God created His Son one with Himself, His holiness is our holiness. His Love is our Love. In truth, nothing else exists. Our experience of this world is a dream in direct opposition to God and His Love. The only substance this world has is given in our mind by our belief in it. Our belief is fully capable of making up images that seem real and impenetrable.

Hypnotists demonstrate the power of belief when they work with a subject who is willing to accept a belief that something exists. But what the subject sees is only in his mind. Observers who do not share the belief see nothing there. Likewise, we believe we see a world that God does not see because he does not share our belief in separation. This belief in the world stands as a shield to “protect” us from the unity of God’s Love. This makes our unity with God unknown to us, but it does not change it.

Our holiness, our oneness with our Creator, is unchangeable. This certainty is the basis on which we heal the world. As we learn to forgive our beliefs that deny Love, we bring healing to the world of denial. There is nothing our holiness cannot do.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting God’s Word That Created His Son

I am spirit.

²I am the Son of God. ³No body can contain my spirit, nor impose on me a limitation God created not.

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

²What can my function be but to accept the Word of God, Who has created me for what I am and will forever be? (A Course in Miracles, W-114.1–2. See also ACIM Lesson 114 Insights.)

God gave His Word that His Son be forever one with Himself, sharing all His attributes, forever changeless and invulnerable. Our only function in the world is to accept God’s gift. In the dream of separation we need to forgive our allegiance to the ego’s denial of God’s Creation.

Only our belief in the ego’s limitation of the body as our identity makes us unaware that we are not a body. We are not limited. All the strength and Love of God are ours. We claim our inheritance now as we let the Holy Spirit show us the truth of What we are through Christ’s vision. With that vision we see every brother as one with us, join with Him in Love and answering his calls for Love with Love. This our part in God’s plan for salvation.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Thoughts We Share with God

My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. ²No one really sees anything. ³He sees only his thoughts projected outward. ⁴The mind’s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. ⁵Your [ego] mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. ⁶It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything.

The one wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. ²To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. ³Very few have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. ⁴The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything.

…train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. ²While thoughtless ideas preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. ³Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank, rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas, is the first step to opening the way to vision. (A Course in Miracles, W-8.1–3. See also ACIM Lesson 3 Insights.)

The ego’s preoccupation with the past dominates our experience in this world. We are constantly labeling and categorizing what we see, hear, feel and think based upon our past experience. We spend 12 or more years in school learning how to do this. We believe it is necessary for our safety and even survival. This is true for us if we identify with the ego thought system of separation exemplified by the body.

The Course is teaching us how to completely reverse our thinking. In the beginning of our practice of the Course, the best most of us can do is practice the affirmations in the lessons even if we don’t believe them. This practice is essential to opening our mind to the possibility that our perceptions may be misinterpreted. We have relied on the ego to be our interpreter, but we are being taught that the ego understands nothing. It cannot even think real thoughts.

Our real thoughts are the Thoughts we share with God. They are Thoughts of Love and extending Love. These Thoughts dwell in the present moment, for Love is timeless. It is neither past nor future. It is changeless, now and forever.

Today we remind ourselves that the thoughts we are aware of are based on the past. We call upon the Holy Spirit’s help to show us the reality of Love beyond our perceptions in the world. With His help, we become Teachers of Love as we awaken to our true Self at Home in the present moment of eternal Love.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Love Is in Plain Sight with Christ’s Vision

My holy vision sees all things as pure.

Father, Your Mind created all that is, Your Spirit entered into it, Your Love gave life to it. ²And would I look upon what You created as if it could be made sinful [separated]? ³I would not perceive such dark and fearful images. ⁴A madman’s dream is hardly fit to be my choice, instead of all the loveliness with which You blessed creation; all its purity, its joy, and its eternal, quiet home in You.

And while we still [believe we] remain outside the gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ. ²Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together to our Father’s house as brothers and the holy Sons of God. (A Course in Miracles, W-263. See also ACIM Lesson 263 Insights.)

Believing we are separate individuals hides the Light of Love from our awareness. We perceive a dark and loveless world. We do not have to accept this madman’s dream. The Holy Spirit offers us the vision that welcomes the Light of Love. This vision sees the presence of Love everywhere and in everyone. It was never lost but only hidden.

It’s like the experience of losing our keys and searching everywhere, only to discover they were in plain sight. Love is always in plain sight through Christ’s vision.

Today we choose Christ’s vision as our way of looking upon the world. And we will see the joy and peace in which we live as God’s Son.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Changing the Purpose of the Dream

This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved. ²You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. ³Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. ⁴By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.

Such is the teaching of the world. ²It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. ³But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question [the world’s] effects. ⁴Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. ⁵In its proper place, it serves but as a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn as they are raised to doubt.

Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. ²Yet accept them not as your reality. ³The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one meaning, and a single Source which unifies all things within Itself. ⁴Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 184, W-184.2;7;11. See also ACIM Lesson 184 Insights.)

The “life” we experience is a game of make believe we play in our mind. We imagine myriad forms and give them names to convince ourselves they are real. Then we set up a system of learning to teach us how to use these make-believe forms to function in this make-believe world. We so thoroughly reinforce these lessons in make-believe, we forget we made up all these forms. In this forgetting, we do not perceive that we are responsible for this world seeming to exist.

The Course is teaching us how to undo these heavily reinforced lessons of the ego. Because this world is so alien to the truth of our oneness with all that is, it seems difficult to comprehend the world is all made up. We are not asked to completely dismiss the illusionary world in one fell swoop. But we are called upon to work with the Holy Spirit to use the forms of the world for Its purpose.

The purpose of the forms is changed from reinforcing division to helping us teach ourselves and our brothers that only the unity of Love is real. Books become means to learn a new way of perceiving. Words become means to teach Love instead of hate. Print and electronic media become means to unify rather than divide.

As teachers of God, we are called to join the Holy Spirit’s purpose with our thoughts and actions. As we do this, we awaken from the dream that played a game of separation. We remember Love is our Identity.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Willingness to Let Illusions Go

The Holy Spirit’s function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God and put the pieces into place again. ²This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture in itself. ³To each He offers his Identity, which the whole picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit that he insisted was himself.

I thank You, Father, knowing You will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. ²Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. ³And they are joined because what is in one is in them all. ⁴How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God’s Son! ⁵The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. ⁶For the whole is in each one. ⁷And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part.

⁸Your willingness to let illusions go is all the Healer of God’s Son requires. ⁹He will place the miracle of healing where the seeds of sickness were. ¹⁰And there will be no loss, but only gain. (A Course in Miracles, T-28.IV.8:1-3;9;10:8-10. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Dreams have no effect on Reality. While we are engaged in dreams, we do not know what Reality is. But our belief in the dream makes it seem real. As long as we insist in believing its reality, we defend it at all costs, even to a dream of death.

To awaken from the dream, we must be willing not to defend it. The Course gently and consistently leads us to realize the dream is giving us nothing of value. It does not give us lasting peace. We may experience periods of happiness, but they do not last. Fear and guilt break through the pleasing images to show the dark underside of the quest for specialness. Beneath the superficial images lies the despair that comes with denial of Love.

As we learn that we do not want the dream, we become willing to let it go. This willingness is all the Holy Spirit needs to lead us to the joy and peace of our true Nature. Now we are willing to awaken from the dream, to set aside its childish games. As we accept the Holy Spirit’s help, our awareness of the Love we are is restored to our Holy Mind. In joy we unite with the Love in our brothers and together we return to our Home in the Love of God.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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