Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Escape from Fear and Guilt

We said that prayer is always for yourself, and this is so. Why, then, should you pray for others at all? And if you should, how should you do it? Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to recognize it is not he who is hurting you. The poisonous thought that he is your enemy, your evil counterpart, your nemesis, must be relinquished before you can be saved from guilt. For this the means is prayer, of rising power and with ascending goals, until it reaches even up to God.”

The earlier forms of prayer, at the bottom of the ladder, will not be free from envy and malice. They call for vengeance, not for love. Nor do they come from one who understands that they are calls for death, made out of fear by those who cherish guilt. They call upon a vengeful god, and it is he who seems to answer them. Hell cannot be asked for another, and then escaped by him who asks for it. Only those who are in hell can ask for hell. Those who have been forgiven, and who accepted their forgiveness, could never make a prayer like that.

At these levels, then, the learning goal must be to recognize that prayer will bring an answer only in the form in which the prayer was made. This is enough. From here it will be an easy step to the next levels. The next ascent begins with this:

What I have asked for for my brother is not what I would have. Thus have I made of him my enemy.

It is apparent that this step cannot be reached by anyone who sees no value or advantage to himself in setting others free. This may be long delayed, because it may seem to be dangerous instead of merciful. To the guilty there seems indeed to be a real advantage in having enemies, and this imagined gain must go, if enemies are to be set free. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.III.1-3)

Our desires are prayers. A desire for anything in the world is a desire for a substitute for God. If we accept a substitute, we become unaware of God. We become unaware of Love. This is why the Course calls the world a loveless place.

When we wish for a special relationship, someone who will meet our perceived needs in the world, we are really seeking an enemy. For any substitute for God is an “enemy” of Love. Love knows no enemies, for it is one. But the ego is afraid of Love and sees Love as its nemesis. It knows that if we accept Love as it is, the ego would cease to seem to exist.

To become aware of the peace and Love that is already given us, we need to let go of our desires for substitutes. We need to learn that no substitute will ever satisfy us. Any thing, circumstance or relationship that seems to bring us happiness can turn in an instant to pain and fear. This is because nothing in the world is true. Truth alone is changeless Love. Here, in Truth, is our eternal peace and happiness. The relinquishment of our beliefs that anything in the world offers anything we truly want is essential for us to find the peace of God.

The daily practice of asking for the Holy Spirit’s vision to replace our perceptions in the world will lead us up the ladder of prayer to the increasing experience of peace and happiness. The pain of fear and guilt will fade and be replaced by the awareness of the Love and peace that is our inheritance.

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

Prayer is a ladder reaching up to Heaven. At the top there is a transformation much like your own, for prayer is part of you. The things of earth are left behind, all unremembered. There is no asking, for there is no lack. Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible. The light no longer flickers, and will never go out. Now, without needs of any kind, and clad forever in the pure sinlessness that is the gift of God to you, His Son, prayer can again become what it was meant to be. For now it rises as a song of thanks to your Creator, sung without words, or thoughts, or vain desires, unneedful now of anything at all. So it extends, as it was meant to do. And for this giving God Himself gives thanks.

God is the goal of every prayer, giving it timelessness instead of end. Nor has it a beginning, because the goal has never changed. Prayer in its earlier forms is an illusion, because there is no need for a ladder to reach what one has never left. Yet prayer is part of forgiveness as long as forgiveness, itself an illusion, remains unattained. Prayer is tied up with learning until the goal of learning has been reached. And then all things will be transformed together, and returned unblemished into the Mind of God. Being beyond learning, this state cannot be described. The stages necessary to its attainment, however, need to be understood, if peace is to be restored to God’s Son, who lives now with the illusion of death and the fear of God. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.II.7-8)

The ego is terrified of Love (God). The acceptance of Love’s oneness would drive the ego’s belief in separation from our holy minds. The seeming split caused by the ego’s denial of God’s Love would disappear and our perception of the dream of separation would dissolve into the experience of the peace and joy of God’s unified, eternal Love. This is the replacement of the lies of the ego with the eternal Truth that has never changed. It is our return Home to Love.

While we remain engaged in the dream world, we need a path that leads us out of our mistaken beliefs. Prayer is a means for asking for help to let go of our belief in what could never be true. When we ask for help to see with Christ’s vision, we are asking for forgiveness. We are asking for release from judgment and guilt. Each circumstance, relationship or perception that we bring to our true Self, the Christ in us, with willingness to change our perception, is a step toward true forgiveness. The separate identity we believe we are cannot help us find the way. True prayer expresses our willingness to see beyond our divided perceptions and see the innocent face of Christ instead.

This is a journey of daily practice, for we have spent our lives trying to hide from our guilt and fear. Each time we practice the prayer of joining in Christ, another layer of self-condemnation is released. That release may appear to be forgiveness of what someone else is believed to have done. Or it may be recognized as forgiveness of our own mistaken belief. These two are in fact the same. When we join with the Christ in our brother, we are accepting the one Mind that joins us in Love. This is the Holy Spirit’s use of time.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Freeing Ourselves from the Ego’s Limitations

At this level [asking-out-of-need] also comes that curious contradiction in terms known as “praying for one’s enemies.” The contradiction lies not in the actual words, but rather in the way in which they are usually interpreted. While you believe you have enemies, you have limited prayer to the laws of this world, and have also limited your ability to receive and to accept to the same narrow margins. And yet, if you have enemies you have need of prayer, and great need, too. What does the phrase really mean? Pray for yourself, that you may not seek to imprison Christ and thereby lose the recognition of your own Identity. Be traitor to no one, or you will be treacherous to yourself.

An enemy is the symbol of an imprisoned Christ. And who could [Christ] be except yourself? The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom. Now it is no longer a contradiction in terms. It has become a statement of the unity of Christ and a recognition of [Christ’s] sinlessness. And now [prayer for enemies] has become holy, for it acknowledges the Son of God as he was created.

Let it never be forgotten that prayer at any level is always for yourself. If you unite with anyone in prayer, you make him part of you. The enemy is you, as is the Christ. Before it can become holy, then, prayer becomes a choice. You do not choose for another. You can but choose for yourself. Pray truly for your enemies, for herein lies your own salvation. Forgive them for your sins, and you will be forgiven indeed. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.II.4-6)

Despite the appearance that we exist in a world which we have no control over, everything we perceive is a projection from our mind. This is why that to pray for an enemy we must pray for forgiveness of ourselves. The “enemy” is only a projection of our own belief in guilt.

Until we fully accept that we were created as Christ, God’s holy Son, our perceived world will be populated with adversaries. We can continue to do battle with our adversaries and stay bound to the ego thought system. Or we can use these perceptions as reminders to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to let go of our mistaken belief that we are separate and disconnected from God’s Love.

The Holy Spirit will help us join with the Christ in our brother which is eternally united with the Christ in ourselves. It is a joining in the one Self that God created as His Son. This is the prayer that will set us free of the ego’s limitations and return us to our Home in God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Praying with the Christ Within

Prayer has no beginning and no end. It is a part of life. But it does change in form, and grow with learning until it reaches its formless state, and fuses into total communication with God. In its asking form it need not, and often does not, make appeal to God, or even involve belief in Him. At these levels prayer is merely wanting, out of a sense of scarcity and lack.

These forms of prayer, or asking-out-of-need, always involve feelings of weakness and inadequacy, and could never be made by a Son of God who knows Who he is. No one, then, who is sure of his Identity [as God’s Son] could pray in these forms. Yet it is also true that no one who is uncertain of his Identity can avoid praying in this way. And prayer is as continual as life. Everyone prays without ceasing. Ask and you have received, for you have established what it is you want.

It is also possible to reach a higher form of asking-out-of-need, for in this world prayer is reparative, and so it must entail levels of learning. Here, the asking may be addressed to God in honest belief, though not yet with understanding. A vague and usually unstable sense of identification has generally been reached, but tends to be blurred by a deep-rooted sense of sin. It is possible at this level to continue to ask for things of this world in various forms, and it is also possible to ask for gifts such as honesty or goodness, and particularly for forgiveness for the many sources of guilt that inevitably underlie any prayer of need. Without guilt there is no scarcity. The sinless have no needs. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.II.1-3)

The Course is teaching us that the Son of God is our true Identity. We remain united and whole in the innocence of the Love of God. This is not how we see ourselves. The world we experience is the out picturing of the decision to believe that we are separate from God. Not only do we not experience the peace of God’s Love, we feel guilty for having denied our Father, our Creator.

This guilt influences all our perceptions in the world. The pain of guilt is intolerable. To reduce the pain, we try to project it on other people and the world. But it does not eliminate the guilt, it only hides it in our unconscious. Guilt demands punishment. The unconscious guilt prays for punishment. It finds punishment in physical sickness and many forms of attack on the body, the ego’s chosen home.

The Course is offering us another way to pray. Instead of praying for punishment, we are being taught to see with Christ’s vision. Christ, our true Self, overlooks the forms of the world and sees the Love beyond the forms. Prayer to see the innocence of Christ frees our mind from the self-imposed need for punishment.

As we learn to recognize the truth of our innocence, we no longer need to bring pain and fear into our minds. As we pray through our willingness to receive Christ’s vision, we free ourselves from the bondage of an identity separated from Love. We welcome the Love that joins us with All That is real. Love is no longer feared but accepted as the healing balm that forgives our perceived sins. This brings us to true prayer that leads us Home to the welcoming arms of God’s Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Receiving the Gift of Christ

Praying to Christ in anyone is true prayer because it is a gift of thanks to His Father. To ask that Christ be but Himself is not an entreaty. It is a song of thanksgiving for what you are. Herein lies the power of prayer. It asks nothing and receives everything. This prayer can be shared because it receives for everyone. To pray with one who knows that this is true is to be answered. Perhaps the specific form of resolution for a specific problem will occur to either of you; it does not matter which. Perhaps it will reach both, if you are genuinely attuned to one another. It will come because you have realized that Christ is in both of you. That is its only truth. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.I.7)

Christ is the symbol of our true Self. It is the part of us that shares the reality of oneness in Love’s innocence. Christ is in everyone. Praying to Christ is joining with the Truth.

We join with the Truth in a brother who may at the time feel a perceived need. As we join in Christ, we open to receive the awareness of Love’s presence. In this awareness, the need is answered in a form that can be understood and accepted.

This joining brings healing to both the one who has asked for help with a need and the one who joins with him in the remembrance of Christ in them both. They have joined together with willingness to receive the gift of Christ that has always been in them, ready to be acknowledged.

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

Prayer is an offering; a giving up of yourself to be at one with Love. There is nothing to ask because there is nothing left to want. That nothingness becomes the altar of God. It disappears in Him.

This is not a level of prayer that everyone can attain as yet. Those who have not reached it still need your help in prayer because their asking is not yet based upon acceptance. Help in prayer does not mean that another mediates between you and God. But it does mean that another stands beside you and helps to raise you up to Him. One who has realized the goodness of God prays without fear. And one who prays without fear cannot but reach Him. He can therefore also reach His Son, wherever he may be and whatever form he may seem to take. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.I.5:5-7;6)

The ego believes that accepting our Identity in the oneness of God’s Love is a sacrifice. This is because the ego, the thought of separation, cannot exist in Love’s oneness. This is why the ego is afraid of Love. True prayer then involves setting aside, at least temporarily, our identification with the ego little self. It means that we have opened our mind to join with the Christ Mind in ourself and our brother.

The ego always has a sense of lack because it does not recognize our true oneness with all that is real. And so the ego always comes from a place of need. This need is interpreted by the ego as a form. It thinks it needs a certain status, relationship or circumstance to feel safe or complete. Our Christ Mind sees only that we are already complete in God’s Love.

While in the ego dream, we need help to recognize that we already have everything we need; we already have all of Love. So when we perceive a need in ourselves or in another, we need to ask for help to recognize the Christ, our true Self, within. We are asking for healing of the mistaken belief in being separate.

Each time we practice this, we loosen our identification with a false image and open to the Light of Love that shines away its shadow and brings us to see the forgiven world. This is the world of the Christ Mind, where all is seen as innocent. The practice of true prayer leads us to accepting that we are at Home in Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Opening Our Minds to God’s Answers

The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need. To ask for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it. Also in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them, and let them go into God’s Hands. There they become your gifts to Him, for they tell Him that you would have no gods before Him; no love but His. What could His answer be but your remembrance of Him? Can this be traded for a bit of trifling advice about a problem of an instant’s duration? God answers only for eternity. But still all little answers are contained in this.

Prayer is a stepping aside; a letting go, a quiet time of listening and loving. It should not be confused with supplication of any kind, because it is a way of remembering your holiness. Why should holiness entreat, being fully entitled to everything Love has to offer? And it is to Love you go in prayer. Prayer is an offering; a giving up of yourself to be at one with Love. There is nothing to ask because there is nothing left to want. That nothingness becomes the altar of God. It disappears in Him. (A Course in Miracles, S-1.I.4-5)

The ego, maker of the dream of separation, can only conceive of images or forms to which it gives meaning based on the belief in separation. Its dedication to separation makes it oblivious to the eternal oneness of Love. While we are believing in the dream, God provides answers in forms that we can understand. His answers are always a reflection of the oneness of Love. They lead us toward the recognition that only Love is real. His answers meet us where we believe we are, taking us gently and progressively toward awakening from the dream.

Our part in the process of awakening from the dream is to be willing to turn over to God the things we think we need in the world with willingness to see them as Love sees them. An example of a way to do this in our mind regarding a specific perceived need is to ask, “How would Love see this? How would Love respond to this?”

This is an expression of willingness to let Love’s reflection be revealed to us in the dream. We are promised that answers specific to our perceived need will be given us. They will always in some way reflect the reality of Love’s oneness. We do not have to understand how it works. We need only be willing to let go of what we think the need is. This is how we open our mind to receive specific guidance for what to think, do or say.

We must be willing to frequently step back from our perceptions and offer them to the Holy Spirit for His loving correction. The more consistently we do this with an open mind, the more peace we will experience in our lives. We will be shifting our attention from the ego mindset to the Love that is our true Self.

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