Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Forgiving the Belief in Separation

…bodies are but symbols for a concrete form of fear. Fear without symbols calls for no response, for symbols can stand for the meaningless. Love needs no symbols, being true. But fear attaches to specifics [symbols], being false.

Bodies attack, but minds do not. …This is the reason bodies easily become fear’s symbols.

Who sees a brother as a body sees him as fear’s symbol.

Select one brother, symbol of the rest, and ask salvation of him. See him first as clearly as you can, in that same form to which you are accustomed. See his face, his hands and feet, his clothing. Watch him smile, and see familiar gestures which he makes so frequently. Then think of this: What you are seeing now conceals from you the sight of one who can forgive you all your sins; …Ask this of him, that he may set you free:

Give me your blessing, holy Son of God. I would behold you with the eyes of Christ, and see my perfect sinlessness in you.

And He will answer Whom you called upon. For He [Christ] will hear the Voice for God in you, and answer in your own. Behold him now, whom you have seen as merely flesh and bone, and recog­nize that Christ has come to you. Today’s idea is your safe es­cape from anger and from fear. Be sure you use it instantly, should you be tempted to attack a brother and perceive in him the symbol of your fear. And you will see him suddenly transformed from enemy to savior; from the devil into Christ. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 161, W-pI.161.5:2-5;6:1,3;8:1;11-12. See also ACIM Lesson 161 Insights.)

Our judgment of a brother depends upon perceiving Him as a body. We judge how the body looks, what it says or does. Without the body, there is nothing to judge. The truth in every brother is Love. Love has no form; it has no limits. Nothing is real except Love.

The exercise quoted above is directed to the part of our mind that believes separation and all its symbols are real. As we are willing to open our mind to Christ’s Vision in answer to our appeal for help, the Holy Spirit uses symbols to help us see past the limitations of the body.

We can only experience the blessings the Son of God offers us when we are willing to set aside our focus on the body. This willingness opens our mind to Christ’s vision, which shows us the reality of Love beyond the body form. As we accept Love’s reality, we experience Love’s blessing. Love’s peace and joy become more real to us, for we have forgiven the symbols of separation. We learn that we are all one in Love.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Seeing Past the Ego’s Projected Masks

My sight goes forth to look upon Christ’s face.

I ask Your blessing on my sight today. It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son.

Today our sight is blessed indeed. We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 269, W-pII.269. See also ACIM Lesson 269 Insights.)

Seeing anyone as a body, including ourselves, is a mistake. We are not a body. Our Self, God’s Son, was created one with God. God has no form, nor does His Son. Everything God is, we are. His Love, joy and peace are ours.

Perception of bodies is the ego’s projection of the belief that separation is real. The appearance of forms is only possible in the ego’s illusions. It is the projection of a mistaken belief in separation which could never be true.

This projection hides our vision from being able to see the face of Christ in everyone. We see a mask that is hiding the truth. We remove the mask with the Holy Spirit’s help. When we welcome His lesson that teaches us to overlook the mask, we learn that Christ is everywhere to be seen. His Light is what we are, along with every brother.

Today we remind ourselves frequently to ask the Holy Spirit to help us see with Christ’s vision. We want to awaken to the Truth that we are all God’s one Son, united together in Love.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The One Lesson We Must Learn

Only the self-accused condemn. As you prepare to make a choice that will result in different outcomes, there is first one thing that must be overlearned. It must become a habit of response so typical of everything you do that it becomes your first response to all temptation, and to every situation that occurs. Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe them to be yours, and therefore meriting a “just” attack.

Why should his sins be sins, if you did not believe they could not be forgiven in you? Why are they real in him, if you did not believe that they are your reality? And why do you attack them everywhere except you hate yourself? Are you a sin? You answer “yes” whenever you attack, for by attack do you assert that you are guilty, and must give as you deserve. And what can you deserve but what you are? If you did not believe that you deserved attack, it never would occur to you to give attack to anyone at all.

Let us be glad that you will see what you believe, and that it has been given you to change what you believe. (A Course in Miracles, T-31.III.1,2:1-7;6:1. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The world we perceive is a direct reflection of what we believe we are. This reflection is cleverly disguised by forms that seem to have nothing to do with us. Yet we would never see forms and judge them real if we did not believe separations is real. By definition, forms are different from each other.

Any appearance in the world that disturbs our peace reflects an unforgiven belief about ourselves. It is this unforgiveness that demands punishment. We would not knowingly punish ourselves. But by disguising our unforgiveness in a form that seems to be external, we can justify our attack. It does not seem that we are only attacking ourselves.

There is another way of looking at the world that we must learn if we want to awaken to Love. Every appearance that disturbs our peace presents a lesson we must learn. We need to practice offering these perceptions to the Holy Spirit for His help to learn the lesson the misperception offers. He will help us forgive our belief about ourselves that is reflected in our perception. With this practice we release the guilt caused by our mistaken belief and take a giant step forward in the healing of our mind. Forgiveness offers everything we want. It opens the door to accept God’s gifts of His peace, joy and eternal Love.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Finding the Path of Return to Love

Father, my freedom is in You alone.

I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me, and the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return.

Today we answer for the world, which will be freed along with us. How glad are we to find our freedom through the certain way our Father has established. And how sure is all the world’s salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone. (W-pII.321)

The key to awaken to the freedom of our Love in God is to resign as our own advisor. We do not know the way Home. To attempt to find the way Home on our own is like trying to follow bread crumbs we left on our journey into the world of limitation and separation. The bread crumbs were no more real than the world; they are not there to lead us Home.

But we do have a Guide in our mind Who speaks for God. He is the link between the part of our mind that has lost its way and the Home we have never left in truth. When we stop trying to find our way alone by making up plans based on false beliefs, our mind welcomes the Guidance of the Holy Spirit.

His Light shows us the path of return to our freedom in limitless Love. The world we experience is a projection of our beliefs. When our false beliefs are healed, those mistaken projections fade away. The world is healed as our mind is healed. The purity of Love that is our true Self awakens in our eternal Home, to be limited no more. We celebrate in joy with our Creator.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to Reclaim Limitless Happiness

Those who would see the witnesses to truth instead of to illusion merely ask that they might see a purpose in the world that gives it sense and makes it meaningful. Without your special function has this world no meaning for you. Yet it can become a treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven itself. No instant passes here in which your brother’s holiness cannot be seen, to add a limitless supply [of happiness] to every meager scrap and tiny crumb of happiness that you allot yourself.

Yet every instant can you be reborn, and given life again. [Your brother’s] holiness gives life to you, who cannot die because his sinlessness is known to God; and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not. You who would make a sacrifice of life, and make your eyes and ears bear witness to the death of God and of His holy Son, think not that you have power to make of Them what God willed not They be. In Heaven, God’s Son is not imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin. And as he is in Heaven, so must he be eternally and everywhere. He is the same forever. (A Course in Miracles, T-26.I.5;6:1-6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The Light we are as God’s Son cannot be extinguished. This same Light is in every brother, for we are all united in God’s Love. The Truth in each of us sees only the Truth in every brother. But judgments based upon past grievances blind us to the presence of Love. As long as we insist on judging, we reinforce the belief that separation is real. True happiness is impossible in a dream of separation because separation denies our unity with the Source of happiness.

We have the means to let go of this denial. We need to forgive our grievances. This is our special function. Everyone seems to have different grievances and judge the world differently. These different judgments lead to conflict, anger and fear.

As we let the Holy Spirit help us heal our fear-based thoughts, we become increasingly aware of the Light of Love in everyone. Eventually we all must come to the point of letting go of the core grievance beneath them all — the ego’s grievance against God for not giving special love. This forgiveness practice is our journey of awakening that leads to limitless happiness and peace that cannot be disturbed. It returns us Home to Heaven.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to Bring Light to the World

The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.

My forgiveness is the means by which the light of the world finds expression through me. My forgiveness is the means by which I become aware of the light of the world in me. My for­giveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world, that it may be healed along with me.

“Suggestions for specific forms for applying this idea are:

Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name].
I share the light of the world with you, [name].
Through my forgiveness I can see this as it is. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 82, W-pI.82.1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 82 Insights.)

God’s Love is the Light of the world, and It is What we are. Grievances block this Light from Its expression in the world. We fill the dark shadows cast by our grievances with hallucinations of attack, loss, separation and death. These hallucinations spawn fear and guilt which make a world in which we believe we are vulnerable and weak.

But this dark world we perceive is not real. Nothing that seems to happen in it has any effect whatsoever on the truth that we, the Son of God, are Love and nothing else. Love can neither harm nor be harmed, for It is one and eternally changeless. What God created one with Him shares all His attributes. Our true nature as Love is revealed when we forgive our grievances. Love is the foundation for forgiveness, for Love sees only Its own harmlessness. Love sees only Itself, for nothing but Love exists in truth.

To let this reality dawn upon our minds, we need to practice, moment by moment, being open to the vision of Love that shows us Truth. We remind ourselves often today to ask of Love, “What would You have me think, what would You have me see, what would You have me say, what would You have me do?” Thus will we bring Light to the world.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Key to Happiness

My happiness and my function are one.

All things that come from God are one. They come from Oneness, and must be received as one. Fulfilling my function is my happiness because both come from the same Source. And I must learn to recognize what makes me happy, if I would find happiness.

Some useful forms for specific applications of this idea are:

This cannot separate my happiness from my function.
The oneness of my happiness and my function re­mains wholly unaffected by this.
Nothing, including this, can justify the illusion of happiness apart from my function. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 83, W-pI.83:3-4. See also ACIM Lesson 83 Insights.)

Our Source is Love, Which is all that is real. Love eternally extends Itself. Thus our only function is to be Love by joining with the eternal extension of Love from our Source.

As we accept our part in Love’s unlimited extension, we experience God’s joy as our own. The seeming happiness we may experience in the world is like a flickering candle compared to the sun. We welcome the joy of being Love as we let Love guide our thoughts, words and actions. With this guidance, we look past appearances in the world to the Light of Love that never diminishes. It only seems hidden from our awareness while we maintain allegiance to the ego’s denial of Love.

Today we dedicate to fulfilling our true function by asking the Holy Spirit to help us see with the vision of Love. As we relinquish our judgments, which deny Love, Love becomes our motivation and our fulfillment. We are increasingly blessed with happiness and peace. We join with God’s Will for us for perfect happiness.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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