Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Welcoming the Love of Our True Self

As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside without a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who could suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to restore himself? Yet how could you accomplish this [restoration] yourself, when the basis of your attempts is the belief in the reality of the deprivation? Deprivation breeds attack, being the belief that attack is justified. And as long as you would retain the deprivation, attack becomes salvation and sacrifice becomes love.

In the holy instant the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body’s interference, and where there is communication there is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication. And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice nothing, and communication, which must be of the mind, cannot be sacrificed. Where, then, is sacrifice? The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere. For communication embraces everything, and in the peace [communication] re-establishes, love comes of itself. (A Course in Miracles, T-15.XI.5;7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

While we identify with the body, it seems that we have a separate mind with private thoughts. It is this perception that blocks true communication, which is unlimited sharing of the Thoughts our mind shares with God. In this scenario, the body is used as a fence to wall off our private thoughts and separate us from the world. The thoughts we believe we think in a body are not real thoughts. They are meaningless hallucinations, which communicate nothing.

This belief has no effect on the Reality of our unlimited unity with God’s Love. This unlimited Love is the universe. It contains all that is real, for only Love is real. In this Love, we experience the peace of God, because what is one and changeless has no conflict. We are perfectly safe in what never changes, for harm is impossible.

Let us join together in welcoming the Prince of Peace, our true Self, into our hearts. As we accept our true Self, we accept the one Self that we share with every brother. We accept God’s Love wholeheartedly.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Holy Spirit’s Loving Correction

The Holy Spirit forgives everything [that is not Love] because God created everything [Love]. Do not undertake His function, or you will forget yours. Accept only the function of healing in time, because that is what time is for. God gave you the function to create [extend Love] in eternity. You do not need to learn that, but you do need to learn to want it. For that all learning was made. This is the Holy Spirit’s use of an ability [to learn] that you do not need, but that you made. Give it to Him! You do not understand how to use [learning]. He will teach you how to see yourself without condemnation, by learning how to look on everything without it. Condemnation will then not be real to you, and all your errors will be forgiven.

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 it, for you will believe what your perception holds. Accept as true only what your brother is [only Love], 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 is shared, and that Its sharing is Its reality. (A Course in Miracles, T-9.III.8;IV.1. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

It is helpful to remember that only Love is real and only Love creates. To give everything is to extend only Love. The ego is the denial of Love, everything that is Real. This is why forgiveness overlooks the ego’s errors. What is not real deserves no attention. While we perceive ourselves as an individual, different from our brothers, we are engaged with the ego. This is the core error that must be corrected. The ego is incapable of true correction because it cannot dismiss itself as unreal.

This is why we must rely on the Holy Spirit for true correction. He will teach us to overlook the ego’s perceptions and antics and show us the reality of Love in our brothers and ourselves. Love is our true Identity and unites us with every brother and with God.

Today we have the joyous opportunity to walk with the Holy Spirit, letting Him guide our perceptions to see only Love or calls for Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Claiming the Peace of Heaven

There is a sense of peace [in Heaven] so deep that no dream in this world has ever brought even a dim imagining of what it is.

Nothing in this world can give this peace, for nothing in this world is wholly shared. Perfect perception can merely show you what is capable of being wholly shared. It can also show you the results of sharing, while you still remember the results of not sharing. The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference for you, allowing Him to demonstrate which must be true. He has perfect faith in your final judgment, because He knows that He will make it for you. To doubt this would be to doubt that His mission will be fulfilled. How is this possible, when His mission is of God?

You whose mind is darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this: God gave the Holy Spirit to you, and gave Him the mission to remove all doubt and every trace of guilt that His dear Son has laid upon himself. It is impossible that this mission fail. Nothing can prevent what God would have accomplished from accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit’s Voice may be, whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to you, God’s Will is done. You will find the peace in which He has established you, because He does not change His Mind. He is invariable as the peace in which you dwell, and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.XI.3:13-5:6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

All the conflict we perceive in the world comes from valuing an illusion rather than the reality of God’s Love. God’s Love is one and doesn’t change. Its changelessness makes Love a safe refuge that we can return to the instant we give up valuing the images of the world.

We believe the world is real because we value what it seems to offer us. God gave us the means to recognize our mistaken values and beliefs. The Holy Spirit’s mission is to teach us to recognize what is real and what is not real. As we learn what is unreal from Him, we freely let it go. No one keeps what they perceive has no value.

Each time we lay down an image we no longer value, we take a step closer to the gate of Heaven. We claim the peace of Heaven as we disown the conflict of the ego. Today we ask the Holy Spirit to be in our mind and teach us the difference between the unreal and the Real, for we would return to the peace of Heaven.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Claiming Love as Ours

Beyond all idols is the Thought God holds of you. Completely unaffected by the turmoil and the terror of the world, the dreams of birth and death that here are dreamed, the myriad of forms that fear can take; quite undisturbed, the Thought God holds of you remains exactly as it always was. Surrounded by a stillness so complete no sound of battle comes remotely near, it rests in certainty and perfect peace. Here is your one reality kept safe, completely unaware of all the world that worships idols, and that knows not God. In perfect sureness of its changelessness and of its rest in its eternal home, the Thought God holds of you has never left the Mind of its Creator Whom [the Thought] knows, [just] as its Creator knows that it is there.

Where could the Thought God holds of you exist but where you are? Is your reality a thing apart from you, and in a world which your reality knows nothing of? Outside you there is no eternal sky, no changeless star and no reality. The mind of Heaven’s Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and of Son joined in creation which can have no end. You have not two realities, but one. Nor can you be aware of more than one. An idol or the Thought God holds of you is your reality. Forget not, then, that idols must keep hidden what you are, not from the Mind of God, but from your own [mind]. The star shines still; the sky has never changed. But you, the holy Son of God Himself, are unaware of your reality. (A Course in Miracles, T-30.III.10-11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The truth of what we are is Love because only Love is real. Love is our Home, our natural state. Because Love is one and undivisable, all Love is ours. Lack of Love is impossible except in dreams that deny our unity with our Source.

The ego was spawned by the wish to claim a little part of Love for ourselves alone. This is impossible because Love does not change; It cannot be divided. While we dream of being separate and alone, we feel lack of Love because the dream hides Love’s Presence.

But Love remains there, ready to be claimed the moment we are willing to give up the wish for specialness. All the forms in the world portray the wish for specialness manifested as differences. They are barriers to the awareness of Love’s Presence. We let go of these barriers by letting the Holy Spirit show us that these barriers have no substance. They have no effect on the changeless presence of Love.

As we are willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s loving lessons, we learn to see past the forms of the world and join with the Love that is everywhere, in everything. It is this practice that is what time is for. It is how we waken from the dream to the awareness that we are at Home in Love eternally.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Classroom to Learn Forgiveness

Forsake not now your brother. For you who are the same will not decide alone nor differently. Either you give each other life or death; either you are each other’s savior or his judge, offering him sanctuary or condemnation. This course will be believed entirely or not at all. For it is wholly true or wholly false, and cannot be but partially believed. And you will either escape from misery entirely or not at all. Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause uncertainly, waiting to choose between the joy of Heaven and the misery of hell. Until you choose Heaven, you are in hell and misery.

Every illusion brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked and disappears. For at its center Christ has been reborn, to light His home with vision that overlooks the world. Would you not have this holy home be yours as well? No misery is here, but only joy.

All you need do to dwell in quiet here with Christ is share His vision. Quickly and gladly is His vision given anyone who is but willing to see his brother sinless. (A Course in Miracles, T-22.II.7;12:7-13:2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Unhappiness comes from believing in being separate from Love, our Source. Happiness is an attribute of Love and cannot be experienced without Love’s oneness. We need to learn to see the truth of Love in everyone if we are to know that we are one with all Love. Love makes no exclusions. Any judgment comes from a belief in differences. It is an attempt to exclude some part from Love. Judgment makes happiness impossible because it inherently brings guilt with it.

The holy relationship, which is dedicated to letting go of judgments and perception of differences and accepting the vision of Love, is the classroom for lessons in forgiveness. The shared dedication provides an opportunity to learn that condemnation blocks Love and guarantees unhappiness.

As we let the Holy Spirit help us see past our judgments to the changeless truth of Love, we let go of the illusion of differences. Unhappiness fades as the veil of illusions is let go, revealing the truth of our joyous Home in Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Releasing Conflict and Accepting Peace

Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is. [Peace] is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom. Knowledge can be restored only when you meet its conditions.

The distractions of the ego may seem to interfere with your learning, but the ego has no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so. The ego’s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say “I am not real.” Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to you. If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind for you.

“Every response to the ego is a call to war [conflict], and war does deprive you of peace. Yet in this war there is no opponent. This is the reinterpretation of reality that you must make to secure peace, and the only one you need ever make. Those whom you perceive as opponents are part of your peace, which you are giving up by attacking them. How can you have what you give up? You share to have, but you do not give it up yourself. …When you give up peace, you are excluding yourself from [peace]. (A Course in Miracles, T.8.I.1:1-4;2;3:1-4,7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Someone who is hallucinating reacts to it because he believes it is real. If he believes he is being attacked, we will defend against the perceived attack. The hallucination is dispelled by letting go of the belief in its reality, not by trying to change the illusion into another less threatening form.

The ego, the source of the illusion of conflict, cannot help us change our belief that its illusions are real. We must accept the help of our the inner Teacher Who knows what reality is.

Every moment of every day offers an opportunity to learn to recognize illusions and see past them to the reality of Love’s Oneness. A perceived opponent is recognized as part of our peace if we allow the Holy Spirit to show us the eternal Love that is always present beyond the appearance of form. Because only Love is real, the appearance of conflicting forms cannot be real. It is in the recognition of our oneness with all that is that we find peace.

Today we practice asking to receive Holy Spirit’s vision in place of our perceptions in the world.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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God’s Loving Promise

Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot but be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. God’s Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.

The Thought of peace was given to God’s Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. There was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite, and merely was. But when the mind is split there is a need of healing. So the Thought that has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, but failed to recognize its oneness. Now it did not know itself, and thought its own Identity was lost.

Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. (A Course in Miracles Workbook, Part II.2, W-pII.2.1:1-3:3. See also ACIM Lesson Insights, Part II.2.)

God has made a promise that will never be broken because He does not change His Mind. Because God does not change, we who are His Sons do not change.

While we perceive a world of form, we believe we have changed the oneness of God’s Son into separate, disconnected parts. Only our support of this belief makes it seem to be true. The path of return to our true Identity in God’s oneness is to simply stop supporting the false idea of separation.

This simple step does not seem easy because we believe if we lost our identity as a separate inividual, we would cease to exist. Yet this illusion of a separate identity has never existed in truth. When we let go of our insistence on keeping this illusion of a separate identity, our true Identity united with God in His Love would be revealed. We would lose nothing to gain everything. God guaranteed our return to our true Self by giving us the Holy Spirit to provide a bridge from our world of illusion to God’s Universe of Love. Here we are at Home, happily dwelling in God’s peace.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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