Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Miracle of True Perception

Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself.

What could the purpose of the body be but specialness? And it is this that makes it frail and helpless in its own defense. [The body] was conceived to make you frail and helpless. The goal of separation is [the body’s] curse. Yet bodies have no goal. Purpose is of the mind. And minds can change as they desire. What [minds] are, and all their attributes, [minds] cannot change. But what they hold as purpose can be changed, and body states must shift accordingly. Of itself the body can do nothing. See it as means to hurt, and it is hurt. See it as means to heal, and it is healed.”

“Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what He loves, and you remain beyond salvation. Only this is certain in this shifting world that has no meaning in reality: When peace is not with you entirely, and when you suffer pain of any kind, you have beheld some sin within your brother, and have rejoiced at what you thought was there. Your specialness seemed safe because of it. And thus you saved [the specialness] you appointed to be your savior, and crucified [your brother] whom God has given you instead. So are you bound with him, for you are one. And so is specialness his “enemy,” and yours as well.” (A Course in Miracles, T-24.IV.1:1;2;5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

When we believe we are a body, we feel vulnerable and helpless in a world where everything has the potential to harm us. We need to be constantly alert to protect not only the body but the personality we associate with the body. This defensiveness leads us to attack whatever we perceive as potential threat. But the perceived threat is only a projection of our fear based on the belief that we maintain our specialness by devaluing everything perceived as external to us. This cycle of projection and defense maintains the ego in a constant battle to protect its image of what we are. This is the ego’s purpose for the body.

As we let the Holy Spirit guide our perceptions, a perceived adversary is recognized as one with us in the Love that is our true Self. Now the body is used for healing the mistaken division and our brother is acknowledged as our savior, for he reflects God’s Love to us. This is the healing the miracle of true perception brings to us. It leads us to accepting ourselves as God’s one Son, united eternally with Him in Love.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Remembering Our Safety in God

I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.

My gratitude permits my love to be accepted without fear. And thus am I restored to my reality at last. All that intruded on my holy sight forgiveness takes away. And I draw near the end of senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values. I accept instead what God establishes as mine, sure that in that alone I will be saved; sure that I go through fear to meet my Love.

Father, I come to You today, because I would not follow any way but Yours. You are beside me. Certain is Your way. And I am grateful for Your holy gifts of certain sanctuary, and escape from everything that would obscure my love for God my Father and His holy Son. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 298, W-pII.298. See also ACIM Lesson 298 Insights.)

The Course tells us “Love is the way I walk in gratitude” (Lesson 195) And “…Love cannot be far behind a grateful heart.” (M-23.4:6)

The ego is the manifestation of lack of gratitude for God’s gifts. What is not appreciated is rejected. Our engagement with the ego thought system brings with it ingratitude for God’s Creation, which is our true Self. Perception is selective, accepting only what is valued. The world of the ego does not value Love, so it is a loveless state of mind.

The Course is teaching us that all we truly want is to remember the Love God gave us in our Creation. Our belief in a loveless world has not changed the fact that we are the Love that we seem not to have. Perception of lovelessness brings fear with it. Though it is disguised in many forms, our underlying fear is of the Love of God.

Forgiveness clears away our mistaken beliefs, our artificial values that hide the Love we are from our awareness. Today we dedicate to frequently remind ourselves of God’s Love for us and express our gratitude for His eternal gift that remains the truth of What we are. What we value most is that we are safe in the Heart of God.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Recognizing Opportunities to Learn Forgiveness

…[God] wills the happiness His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. That is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form.

Forgive, and you will see this differently.

These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its form. These are the words with which temptation ends, and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more. These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.

How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.

God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 193, W-pI.193.1:2-4;4:1-2;5;7;8:1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 193 Insights.)

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.” (Lesson 122) It is important to learn that anything that disturbs our peace is the result of unforgiveness. This is because the dream of separation is built upon the ego’s unwillingness to accept God’s gift of all His Love, joy and peace. All the forms in the world are outward pictures of the unforgiving mind’s belief in separation.

When we forgive God for not giving us specialness, the dream of separation fades away. We remove the barriers we made in our mind to “protect” against God’s Love. The way is cleared to awaken to the indescribable joy and peace that cannot be disturbed which are attributes of God’s Love.

This is why everything we perceive in the world is an opportunity to learn forgiveness. When forgiveness is complete, the dream world disappears into the nothingness from which it came.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Freedom to Be Love

‘I place the future in the Hands of God’ …sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven’s gate; the quiet place of peace, where you await with certainty the final step of God.

God holds your future as He holds your past and present. They are one to Him, and so they should be one to you. Yet in this world, the temporal progression still seems real. And so you are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God’s Hands. And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His Hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless.

As [placing the future in God’s Hands] becomes a thought that rules your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is saved. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 194, W-pI.194.1:2-3;4;6:2-3. See also ACIM Lesson 194 Insights.)

Every fear, guilt and worry comes from an experience in the past that we are hanging on to and using as the basis for interpreting the present. This is an ego device to avoid the reality that there is no division of time between past, present and future. It is a defense against God’s eternal, changeless Love. In His Love there is only peace and happiness — no worries, anxiety, guilt or fear.

Because of the timelessness of eternal Love, placing the future in God’s Hands neutralizes the ego’s defense. It returns our mind to our true Self, living eternally at one with Love. Here nothing can disturb our peace. No harm can happen so there is no cause for guilt or fear. In God’s Hands we are free to be Love as Love created us.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Self God Created as His Son

I am as God created me” is] the one idea which brings complete salvation; the one statement which makes all forms of temptation powerless; the one thought which renders the ego silent and en­tirely undone. You are as God created you.

If you remain as God created you, you must be strong and light must be in you. He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God created you.

…the Son of God in you… is the Self that never sinned, nor made an image to replace reality. This is the Self that never left Its home in God to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self that knows no fear, nor could conceive of loss or suffering or death.

…be sure to respond to anyone who seems to irritate you with these words:

You are as God created you.
You are His Son eternally. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 94, W-pI.94.1:1-2;2:2-4;3:5-8;5:5-7. See also ACIM Lesson 94 Insights.)

The ego is the belief that it is possible to change what God created. But this could only seem to be accomplished in a fantasy or dream. The appearance that we are in a world of time with separate bodies and places is the result of accepting with the ego’s belief.

To return to awareness of our true Self simply requires that we let go of the ego belief system. The practice of reminding ourselves that we are God’s Son eternally helps us shift from a mistaken identification with the ego to accepting the truth that we are God’s Creation, not the ego’s fantasies.

To recognize fully that we are as God created us, we must also recognize that every brother is as God created him. Full acceptance of this thought awakens us from the dream of separation, for everyone is joined in the one Self God created as His Son. Fear and guilt cannot exist in the oneness of Love. This idea returns us to the peace and joy of our unity in God’s Love.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Finding the Peace We Yearn For

The hush of Heaven holds my heart today.

Father, how still today! How quietly do all things fall in place! This is the day that has been chosen as the time in which I come to under­stand the lesson that there is no need that I do anything. In You is every choice already made. In You has every conflict been resolved. In You is everything I hope to find already given me. Your peace is mine. My heart is quiet, and my mind at rest. Your Love is Heaven, and Your Love is mine.

The stillness of today will give us hope that we have found the way, and travelled far along it to a wholly certain goal. Today we will not doubt the end which God Himself has promised us. We trust in Him, and in our Self, Who still is one with Him. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 286, W-pII.286. See also ACIM Lesson 286 Insights.)

The ego constantly strives because with the thought of separation comes the belief in being incomplete. This is because the ego is the denial of the only Source of our completion. By the ego’s denial of God’s Love it has condemned itself to a constant search for reality in an unreal dream where reality cannot be found.

There is nothing we need to do because God created His Son, our one true Self, as eternal as Himself. We already have everything that God is. We only need to accept God’s Reality as our own. Nothing else is real.

Today we practice paying attention to the Teacher God gave us to lovingly awaken us to our Home in the Heart of God. Only here will we find the peace we are yearning for in the dream.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting Love as Our Home

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

Such is the teaching of the world. It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. But the sooner he per­ceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises, how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. In 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. Yet accept them not as your reality. The 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. Use 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-pI.184.2;7;11. See also ACIM Lesson 184 Insights.)

To share a name is to share an identity. We share the name of God because we share His Identity as unlimited Love, peace and happiness. The names we give objects in the world were made by the ego to make separateness appear real. This sense of separateness stands as a barrier between what we believe we are and the truth of our unity in God’s universal Love.

The names we use in the world are symbols that we use to communicate with each other. Although they were made to maintain separation, they can be used by the Holy Spirit to help us awaken to our true Identity.

We can live in the world while waking up by asking Him to guide our thoughts and actions throughout the day. Under His tutelage our thoughts of fear are recognized as calls for Love. And we let Love answer every call. The Light of Love shines brighter in our minds. Peace replaces conflict. Happiness replaces sadness. Love is accepted as our Home.

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