Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Holy Spirit’s Plans Bring Peace of Mind

A healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan, al­though it cannot know the outcome which is best, the means by which it is achieved, nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve. [The mind] must misuse the body in its plans until it recognizes this is so. But when [the mind] has accepted [it need not plan is] true, then is it healed, and lets the body go.

Enslavement of the body to the plans the unhealed mind sets up to save itself must make the body sick. It is not free to be the means of helping in a plan which far exceeds [the body’s] own protection, and which needs its service for a little while. In this capacity is health assured. For everything the mind employs for this will function flawlessly, and with the strength that has been given it and cannot fail.

The mind engaged in planning for itself is occupied in setting up control of future happenings. It does not think that it will be provided for, unless it makes its own provisions. Time becomes a future emphasis, to be controlled by learning and experience obtained from past events and previous beliefs. It overlooks the present, for it rests on the idea the past has taught enough to let the mind direct its future course.

The mind that plans is thus refusing to allow for change. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 135, W-pI.135.12-13;15:1-16:1. See also ACIM Lesson 135 Insights.)

One of the early workbook lessons reminds us that we do not know what anything means. Thus any plans we make must be based on a false premises and illusions. Because the things we see are illusions and therefore meaningless, we assign them meaning to give ourselves some sense of security. But this practice has a consequence — any change that may seem to occur in the illusions we have given meaning threatens our sense of safety.

We carefully make plans to protect against change. Yet no matter how carefully we plan on our own, things can come up that we have not planned for and therefore further threaten us. These plans spiral deeper and deeper into cycles of attack and defense. On our own, we cannot free ourselves from this spiral because all our defenses simply reinforce our fear and the perceived threat leads to more defenses and more fear.

The key to release from this spiral is to disengage our identity from the ego and let the Holy Spirit do our planning for us. The Holy Spirit will always guide us to recognize what we thought was a threat has no substance because it is not real. He replaces this perception with the vision of Love’s eternal presence. He offers us the safety of Love’s changelessness in place of the vulnerability of illusions.

Today we let our minds be healed by practicing letting Holy Spirit plan all things on our behalf. Here we will find the safety that brings with it peace of mind.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Gift of Deliverance and Peace

…everyone is equally entitled to His gift of healing and deliverance and peace. To give a problem to the Holy Spirit to solve for you means that you want it solved. To keep it for yourself to solve without His help is to decide it should remain unsettled, unresolved, and lasting in its power of injustice and attack.

The little problems that you keep and hide become your secret sins, because you did not choose to let them be removed for you. …The unforgiven have no mercy to bestow upon another. That is why your sole responsibility must be to take forgiveness for yourself.

Each miracle is an example of what justice can accomplish when it is offered to everyone alike. It is received and given equally. It is awareness that giving and receiving are the same. Because it does not make the same unlike, it sees no differences where none exists. And thus it is the same for everyone, because it sees no differences in them. Its offering is universal, and it teaches but one message:

What is God’s belongs to everyone, and is [everyone’s] due. (A Course in Miracles, T-25.IX.7:4-6;9:1,5-6;10:4-10. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

We cannot truly forgive without Help from outside the ego’s thought system of separation and specialness. The ego cannot conceive of equality because it is built upon the foundation of inequality. To experience the miracle the Holy Spirit offers to everyone, we must be willing to let Him replace our perception of differences and limitation with His certainty that everyone is worthy and deserving of God’s changeless Love.

As we accept the Holy Spirit’s vision, the adversaries we once perceived become our dearest friends, for we recognize our unity with them in Love. The Holy Spirit sees everyone the same as God’s Son. When we become totally aligned with the Holy Spirit’s vision, we remember our true Self in peace and joy.

We dedicate today to offering all our perceptions to the Holy Spirit for His loving correction so we may experience the blessing of forgiveness.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Letting Love’s Light Dawn upon Our Mind

My grievances hide the light of the world in me. My grievances show me what is not there, and hide from me what I would see. Recognizing this, what do I want my griev­ances for? They keep me in darkness and hide the light. Griev­ances and light cannot go together, but light and vision must be joined for me to see. To see, I must lay grievances aside. I want to see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed.

Specific applications for this idea might be made in these forms:

Let me not use this as a block to sight.
The light of the world will shine all this away.
I have no need for this. I want to see. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 85, W-pI.85:1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 85 Insights.)

Grievances are judgments against what is. Perceiving a brother as a body is a judgment against the oneness of Love that he is. At its core, it is a judgment against the Love of God. Our true Self remains united with the Love of God and desires only to remain one with Love. Our true Self’s only desire is to see the Love that our brother is and join with him in Love’s unity.

But when we judge a brother, including believing he is a body, we deny the presence of Love. This denial hides the Light of Love from our awareness, leaving us in a dream of lovelessness, fear and guilt. To waken from the dream we need to accept the Holy Spirit’s vision in place of the ego’s image-making. When we perceive anything that disturbs our peace, it is a sign that we need to forgive our misperception. When the misperception is let go, the Light of Love dawns upon our mind.

Every day is filled with opportunities to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to forgive our misperceptions and join with Love. Let’s join together in the practice of forgiveness.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gratitude for the Gift of God’s Love

Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to smoother roads. There is no thought of turning back, and no implacable resistance to the truth. A bit of wavering remains, some small objections and a little hesitance, but you can well be grateful for your gains, which are far greater than you realize.

Be glad today, in loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be grateful He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation. Give Him thanks today.

Give thanks that He has not abandoned you, and that His Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without change. Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be grateful you are saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 123, W-pI.123.1;2:2-3:5. See also ACIM Lesson 123 Insights.)

The ego wants us to believe that God has abandoned us. But this is just a disguise to hide the ego’s wish to abandon God. It is impossible for God to abandon His Creation, for all He creates remains within His Mind. To create is to extend Love, which is all that is real. There is no other place where God’s Son could abide outside of God’s Mind.

No matter how thoroughly we have convinced ourselves that we are a little self, limited to a body and separate from God’s Love, our true Self remains eternally in the oneness of Love. The fact that our true Self is inseparable from God is our salvation. We could never be the lonely, vulnerable self the ego portrays us to be.

Today let us join in gratitude with all our brothers as we remind ourselves that we remain at Home in Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Letting Love Supersede Illusions

Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. Nothing in God’s creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. I am always upset by nothing.

I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is preoccupied with the past. What, then, can I see as it is? Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 52, W-pI.52.1:2-8;3:2-6. See also ACIM Lesson 52 Insights.)

Unforgiveness is always an attempt to project the past on the present. We “remember” a transgression or hurt from the past and project it on the present as a way of avoiding seeing what is only there to see — Love’s oneness. It is this process that makes time seem real. It is always used to avoid the present. It is used to live as though the past is always with us and it determines our interpretation of everything in the present.

Yet only Love is real and eternal. Nothing else exists in truth. What we see with the body’s eyes is a form that is an illusion. What we think we see does not really exist. When we let the past go, the Light of Love shines in our mind. No longer do the images of the ego disrupt the vision of Love’s eternal presence.

Today we practice letting the Holy Spirit show us how to look beyond the illusions of the world to see Love’s timelessness. With His help, Love supersedes illusions as we accept Love’s universe of thoughts as our own.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Recognizing the Love Our Brother Is

You have so little faith in yourself because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is in you. And so you seek without for what you cannot find without. I offer you my perfect faith in you, in place of all your doubts. But forget not that my faith must be as perfect in all your brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to you. In the holy instant we share our faith in God’s Son because we recognize, together, that he is wholly worthy of it, and in our appreciation of his worth we cannot doubt his holiness. And so we love him.

In the holy instant you recognize the idea of love in you, and unite this idea with the Mind that thought it, and could not relinquish it. By holding [the idea of Love] within [your mind], there is no loss. The holy instant thus becomes a lesson in how to hold all of your brothers in your mind, experiencing not loss but completion. From this it follows you can only give. And this is love, for this alone is natural under the laws of God.

For in the holy instant you will recognize the only need [to extend Love] the Sons of God share equally, and by this recognition you will join with me in offering [the Love that] is needed. (A Course in Miracles, T-15.VI.2;5:3-7;6:10. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Every brother is worthy of our total commitment to Love What he is. The true Self we share with every brother is Love. If we perceive a brother as a body, we are denying the truth of What he is and therefore are not loving him for What he Is. We see a brother as a body because we believe we are a body. To the ego, it is important that we see our brother’s as bodies because it reinforces the false belief that we are bodies. God did not create His Son as a body, which is a limitation.

God created His Son by extending the idea of Love, which remains united in the Mind of God. Our only need is to accept God’s gift of the total idea of Love without limit. We fulfill this need by accepting and joining with the Love that is the truth in every brother. When we do this we accept our one Self, including every brother as God’s one Son.

The holy instant, in which we put aside our belief in separation, we experience the Love he is, along with our Self. We make way for the holy instant when we shift our perception of a brother as an image to the recognition of the Love he is.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit’s help to see past the images of the world to the unity of Love everywhere.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning How to Teach Peace

…the Holy Spirit teaches you that truth was created by God, and your decision cannot change it. As you begin to realize the quiet power of the Holy Spirit’s Voice, and Its perfect consistency, it must dawn on your mind that you are trying to undo a decision that was irrevocably made for you. That is why I suggested before that you remind yourself to allow the Holy Spirit to decide for God for you.

The Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is.…

To have peace, teach peace to learn it.

…[this] is a giant step toward the unified perception that reflects God’s knowing. As you take this step and hold this direction, you will be pushing toward the center of your thought system, where the fundamental change will occur.” (A Course in Miracles, T-6.V.B.6:3-5;7:2,5;9:1-2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

All Creation is simply an extension of God’s Love. Only Love creates and only Love is real. This is God’s guarantee that we can never truly lose our Reality of Love in God’s Love. No matter what dreams of separation, fear and guilt we may conjure, we remain changeless Love. By believing that we have separated from God, we have embedded ourselves in a dream that could never be true. This dream blocks Love from our awareness.

Fortunately a dream cannot change Reality. We need only awaken from the dream to remember What we have always been and can never change. Our true Self is eternally happy, eternally peaceful and loving. Our oneness with our Creator has never been lost.

An important step in awakening from the dream of guilt, fear and death is to teach peace. We teach peace in the world by letting the Holy Spirit guide our perceptions all through the day. When something triggers an unpeaceful response or thought, we need to step back and connect with the peace of God within us. In this peace the Holy Spirit guides us how to respond with peace in the face of perceived conflict. Each time we let the Holy Spirit respond on our behalf, we teach peace and learn how to be in peace.  It leads to the fundamental change that awakens us from believing we are a separate identity to knowing our oneness in the Love of God.

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