Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Remembering Who We Are

The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and lose your own soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you cannot lose your soul and there is no gain in the world, for of itself it profits nothing. To invest without profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment, but the cost to you is enormous. For this investment costs you the world’s reality by denying yours, and gives you nothing in return. You cannot sell your soul, but you can sell your awareness of it. You cannot perceive your soul, but you will not know it while you perceive something else as more valuable.

What is one cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation is the reinstatement of knowledge. At the altar of God, the holy perception of God’s Son becomes so enlightened that light streams into it, and the spirit of God’s Son shines in the Mind of the Father and becomes one with it. Very gently does God shine upon Himself, loving the extension of Himself that is His Son. The world has no purpose as it blends into the purpose of God. For the real world has slipped quietly into Heaven, where everything eternal in it has always been. There the Redeemer and the redeemed join in perfect love of God and of each other. Heaven is your home, and being in God it must also be in you. (A Course in Miracles, T-12.VI.1,7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

What we believe in, we perceive as true. If we believe in the ego choice for separation, we are investing in an illusion, which gives us nothing real in return. An investment that returns nothing is a total loss. But what could never be real has no effect on reality. This is the grace of God that guarantees that we retain all the value that God gave us in our Creation has His Son. We need only awaken from the ego’s dream of deprivation to remember that we still are God’s Son and all that He has given remains ours eternally.

The Holy Spirit’s mission is to gently and lovingly guide us to awaken from the dream of isolation and loss. He does this by helping us forgive our mistaken beliefs. When all these beliefs have been forgiven, the real world of God’s Love is revealed. We remember Who we are. We stand at the gate of Heaven, where we are welcomed as God’s Son, His eternal extension of Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Holy Spirit’s Happy Lessons

The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions, and avoid their own reality. Yet when they find their own reality is even here, then they step back and let [reality] lead the way. What other choice is really theirs to make? To let illusions walk ahead of truth is madness. But to let illusion sink behind the truth and let the truth stand forth as what it is, is merely sanity.

This is the simple choice we make today. The mad illusion will remain awhile in evidence, for those to look upon who chose to come, and have not yet rejoiced to find they were mistaken in their choice. They cannot learn directly from the truth, because they have denied that it is so. And so they need a Teacher Who perceives their madness, but Who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 155, W-pI.155.2-3. See also ACIM Lesson 155 Insights.)

To believe that we are anything but the infinite, unlimited, timeless Love of God is insane. But our belief that we are separate from Love makes the world we see seem more real than the truth. The choice to be in the world is the choice to deny our true Self and our unity with our Creator. Because of this belief, we need help from a Teacher Who is not deceived by our mistaken belief.

In truth, we are already Love. But we have taught ourselves to deny it so we need to be taught how to let go of this denial. This is the Holy Spirit’s teaching mission. The first step in this process is to teach us that what we have chosen is not bringing us what we really want. Instead of Love, peace and happiness, our choice has brought us fear, conflict and depression. The ego tries to hide these consequences by giving us images that seem appealing on the surface. They seem to give us what we think we want, but soon are recognized to be at best temporary and ultimately empty.

With the Holy Spirit’s help, we forgive these mistaken images as we learn they offer nothing that we really want. With this recognition, our minds open to see past the empty images with the Holy Spirit’s help. Now the Light of Love shines brighter in our mind. We experience deeper levels of peace and increasing happiness. These changes motivate us to practice more, letting the Holy Spirit show us the truth beyond the illusions and learn His happy lessons.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Coming Home to Love

No one can escape God’s Final Judgment. Who could flee forever from the truth? But the Final Judgment will not come until it is no longer associated with fear. One day each one will welcome it, and on that very day it will be given him. He will hear his sinlessness proclaimed around and around the world, setting it free as God’s Final Judgment on him is received. This is the Judgment in which salvation lies. This is the Judgment that will set him free. This is the Judgment in which all things are freed with him. Time pauses as eternity comes near, and silence lies across the world that everyone may hear this Judgment of the Son of God:

Holy are you, eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God. Where is the world, and where is sorrow now?

Have you yet learned to stand aside and hear the Voice of Judgment in yourself? Or do you still attempt to take His role from Him? Learn to be quiet, for His Voice is heard in stillness. And His Judgment comes to all who stand aside in quiet listening, and wait for Him. (A Course in Miracles, M-15.1:2-12;2:10-13)

The ego is terrified of God’s Final Judgment and wants us to fear it as well. This is because God’s Final Judgment ends the separation, which eliminates the ego. The ego tells us the Final Judgment is death and oblivion. But in truth, it is Life. It comes as we accept our oneness with God’s Love. It reunites us with the Life we share with God.

We prepare our mind to welcome God’s Final Judgment through forgiveness. It is our belief in guilt that makes us fear His Judgment. When we forgive ourselves for our errors in perception and accept the Holy Spirit’s loving correction, we accept God’s Final Judgment with joy and gratitude. It is our coming Home to Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Undoing Fear by Accepting God’s Love

A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth, and had thus perceived yourself as lacking.

The real purpose of this world is to use [the world] to correct your unbelief. You can never control the effects of fear yourself, because you made fear, and you believe in what you made. …Belief produces the acceptance of existence. That is why you can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for you because it was made by you.

In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along these lines:

Perfect love casts out fear.
If fear exists,
Then there is not perfect love. 
But: 
Only perfect love exists.
If there is fear,
It produces a state that does not exist.

Believe this and you will be free. Only God can establish this solution, and this faith is His gift. (A Course in Miracles, T-1.VI.2:1-2;4:1-2,4-6;5:3-10. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The Course defines fear as lack of Love. It also tells us that only Love is real. Therefore a perception of lack of Love (fear) appears real only because of our belief in being separate from Love. This is what the Course is calling our “unbelief.”

The ego is the rejection of the reality of Love. The Holy Spirit’s purpose for the world is to use it to teach us to distinguish between the reality of Love and the unreality of fear. God has given us the gift of faith to recognize that what does not exist cannot be cause for fear. As we let go of our belief in what the ego made, we free ourselves to experience the reality of Love that we are and live in eternally.

Today we will remind ourselves frequently that anything that disturbs our peace cannot be real. Then ask the Holy Spirit to help us see the reality of Love beyond the appearance of fear.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to Disown the Ego’s Fantasy

Forgiveness offers everything I want.

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God. …All the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs dis­appear before the power and the majesty of this extremely simple statement of the truth.

Before the light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise you have no words to picture. Now we walk directly into light, and we re­ceive the gifts that have been held in store for us since time be­gan, kept waiting for today. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 122, W-pI.122.1;6:3-5,7;12. See also ACIM Lesson 122 Insights.)

The ego’s world is a grievance against God. The ego is the wish to have special love it can call its own, which God cannot give and be the oneness of Love He is. To “fulfill” its wish for specialness, the ego made a world of separation, where everything is different and unity is impossible. Thus the ego maintains its fantasy of specialness.

As we let go of believing in the ego’s fantasy — its images of separate things and separate thoughts — we forgive the ego’s grievance which we have claimed as our own through our belief. Our part in forgiveness is to be willing to offer all our perceptions to the Holy Spirit for His reinterpretation. He will show us that our perceptions of loss, lack, fear and guilt are based on a false idea. He will teach us to recognize these perceptions as calls for Love and help us answer with Love. As Love shines its Light on illusions, they fade and the Light of Love beyond them comes to the forefront.

Here is where we find peace that cannot be disturbed. We experience the joy of the eternal flow of Love’s giving and receiving. All we really want is to know that we are Love, to remember Who we are. Today is a good day to practice letting the Holy Spirit reinterpret all our perceptions.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Why the Atonement Undoes Guilt

Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to one of God’s creations.

Decision cannot be difficult. This is obvious, if you realize that you must already have decided not to be wholly joyous if that is how you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you actively decided wrongly, but can as actively decide otherwise. Be very firm with yourself in this, and keep yourself fully aware that the undoing process [Atonement], which does not come from you, is nevertheless within you because God placed it there. Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me. (A Course in Miracles, T-5.VII.5:1;6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Our guilt seems to be justified because we are convinced that we did something that caused harm. Only in the illusion of the world of separation does this appear to be true. Yet illusions are not real and are therefore not true. This is the key to our release from guilt.

Because only Love is real, harm is impossible. Love is one and cannot hurt Itself. Nothing but Love exists. When we make the decision to choose God’s plan for our Atonement, we are choosing the oneness of Love instead of the separation of the ego. We are choosing Reality instead of illusion.

The decision for God, for Love’s oneness, undoes the justification for guilt because it unites us with Love’s oneness. We only have to be willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to correct our mind. This willingness allows the Holy Spirit to shine away the mistaken perception of harm, which undoes the guilt. It returns us to the joy of joining with the eternal extension of Love. The decision for God is the decision to be Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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An Alternative Way to See the Worl

God goes with me wherever I go.

How can I be alone when God always goes with me? How can I be doubtful and unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in Him? How can I be disturbed by anything when He rests in me in absolute peace? How can I suffer when love and joy sur­round me through Him? Let me not cherish illusions about myself. I am perfect because God goes with me wherever I go.

God is my strength. Vision is His gift.

Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ’s vision is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 59, W-pI.59.1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 59 Insights.)

The Course is teaching us that what the body’s eyes see is only an illusion of seeing. It is really image making that seems to confirm separation is real. This perception is essential to the maintenance of the ego’s belief it is separate from God. It denies Love’s oneness.

But there is an alternative way to see the world. Christ’s vision sees past the ego’s images to the Presence of Love that is everywhere, around us and in us. We don’t need to deny that the body’s eyes see images. We just need to remember that those images are unreal and choose instead the vision of Christ that shows us the reality of Love.

Love is always with us because God goes with us wherever we go. His vision is available to us in every instant. As we give Christ’s vision priority, the world becomes a place of healing. Fear subsides and Love is recognized more and more. Guilt fades as we remember we are one in God’s Love.

Today we remind ourselves frequently that Love goes with us everywhere. And we choose to see all things with Love’s vision.

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