Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Accepting the True Self We Share with All

I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.

Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother’s sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.

What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my brother’s sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 335, W-pII.335. See also ACIM Lesson 335 Insights.)

Perception requires a perceiver and something separate that is perceived. This could only seem to occur in a dream where separation is believed to be real. In this dream we believe we are a self separate from everything in the world. Yet God created His one Son eternally united with Him in the oneness of His Love.

Our true Self is God’s Son. This Self is the same Self we share with every brother. When we see our brother as the Love He is, we see our one Self. This is true perception, for it overlooks the division the ego would have us see. In the world of perception, the best we can do is perceive the Love that our brother is.

When forgiveness is complete, Love is wholly accepted. We perceive the truth in our brother which reflects our own completion in the Love of God. We have let go of the ego’s insistence on separation and welcomed the Reality of our true Self in God. Perception is no longer needed, for we remember our unity in the Love of God, where we rest in the peace of His holiness.

Today we seek to see the Love in our brothers, for we would remember the Love we are. Together with our brother, we join in God’s peace and joy.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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What Do We Want to See?

Trusting [the truth in] your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack [judge] a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours.

Perception has a focus. It is this that gives consistency to what you see. Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. Your vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. Remove your focus on your brother’s sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness.

And as our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 181, W-pI.181.1:1-2:5;8:3-6. See also ACIM Lesson 181 Insights.)

We see what we want to see. If we align with the ego’s desire to make separation real, we see a world of fear and guilt, separation and lack of Love. With this intent, the world we see shows us sickness, loneliness, destruction, hate and fear. This is what the ego wants because it makes separation seem real. It gives the ego seeming existence.

But we can change our intent by aligning with our true Self, represented by the Holy Spirit in our mind. The Holy Spirit’s intent in every moment is to see with Love, to see with the vision of Christ. When we choose this intent, the real world of peace and Love is revealed to us. The false images generated by the ego’s intent fade into the nothingness from which they came.

What do we want to see? It is a simple choice. Do we want to protect the ego’s dream of fear and guilt? Or do we want to welcome the vision of the real world, where innocence is recognized and the unity of Love welcomed?

Today we practice welcoming the Holy Spirit’s gift of Christ’s vision, for we would see the real world of innocence and peace through the eyes of Love.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Relax into the Love of God

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. (W-pII.286)

The ego is constantly working to maintain the illusion that it is possible to be separate from God and make a world where everything is disconnected and unity denied. This constant engagement and efforting to make this world is essential to maintain the seeming reality of separation from Love.

The ego is terrified of peace because it is held in our mind through conflict. While we engage in the ego’s view of the world, we feel alone, fearful and guilty because of what we think we have done and others do to us.

Yet it is impossible to do anything that can change the Self God created as His Son. We need to let go and be our Self. To awaken to the certainty of our presence within God’s Love, we just need to stop engaging with the ego’s efforts to maintain the veil of separation. We need to relax our efforts and settle into the quiet peace of God’s Love. In truth we have nothing to defend, for we remain unified with God and His Love.

Today we pause, allow ourselves to relax into the Love of God, where the quietness of Heaven comforts us and Love blesses us with the joy that our unity with every brother in Love brings.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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We Choose the Holy Spirit’s Vision as Our Own

Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated or in need of anything, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God’s Son. …The picture of yourself you offer him you show yourself, and give it all your faith. The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is no pain and no reproach at all. And what was martyred to his guilt becomes the perfect witness to his innocence.

The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother you have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, because it witnessed to the guilt in him which you perceived and loved.

Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a different you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you really are cannot be seen nor pictured. Yet this one has not been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. It witnesses to the eternal truth that you cannot be hurt, and points beyond itself to both your innocence and his. Show this unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look beyond it to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has never sinned; that nothing which his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That no reproach he laid upon his heart was ever justified, and no attack can ever touch him with the poisoned and relentless sting of fear. (A Course in Miracles, T-27.I.3:1,4-6;4:10-5:8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The world we experience as a body is all a projection of the ego thought system. We see it because we have accepted the ego as our guide and the substitute identity it has offered in place of the Self God created one with Him. These projections are not real. They simply reflect what we believe about ourself. The ego uses this reflection to reinforce guilt. It seems to project the guilt outside of us but secretly keeps it for ourself.

But the Holy Spirit offers another way to use projection in the world. It offers His vision of the innocence that is the truth in every brother. As we accept this vision, our brother becomes a reflection of our own innocence. What we had judged under the ego’s direction, we see as innocent and united with us through Love’s vision.

This brings healing to our troubled mind. It shows us the Love we are reflected in our brother and we recognize our unity. This is true forgiveness. This is the healing vision that transforms us, releasing the Love we are to be shared without limit, as God shares His Love with us.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit to help us see the Reality of Love in the world, for we would forgive and let our minds be healed.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Love Lights the Way to Heaven

God is the light in which I see.

In order to see, you must recognize that light is within, not without. You do not see outside yourself, nor is the equipment for seeing outside you. An essential part of this equipment is the light that makes seeing possible. It is with you always, making vision possible in every circumstance.

…leave behind everything that you now believe, and all the thoughts that you have made up. Properly speaking, this is the release from hell. Yet per­ceived through the ego’s eyes, it is loss of identity and a descent into hell.

If you can stand aside from the ego by ever so little, you will have no difficulty in recognizing that its opposition and its fears are meaningless.

…what is needful is a sense of the importance of what you are doing; its inestimable value to you, and an awareness that you are attempting something very holy. Salvation is your hap­piest accomplishment. It is also the only one that has any mean­ing, because it is the only one that has any real use to you at all.

Try to think of light, formless and without limit, as you pass by the thoughts of this world. And do not forget that they cannot hold you to the world unless you give them the power to do so. (W-pI.44.2;5:4-6:1;8;10:2-3)

The body is not part of our Reality as God’s Son. It represents the ego’s wish to be excluded from God. God’s Creation of His Son comes with one condition: His Son must accept His eternal unity with His Creator. As a projection of the ego’s rejection of God’s Love, the body cannot be real. What the body sees, hears, feels and experiences is likewise unreal. The body’s eyes were made to be unable to perceive the Light of Love. But as God’s Son, we have the innate ability to see Love’s Light and see the oneness we share with All That Is.

Love is the Light that brings Christ’s vision to reveal the innocence and unity that joins us with every brother in our Creator. Today we let the Light of Love guide us by asking Love to take the lead in all our thoughts.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Truth Is Union

The search for truth is but the honest searching out of everything that interferes with truth. Truth is. …Yet it can be recognized or unrecognized, real or false to you. If you hide it, it becomes unreal to you because you hid it and surrounded it with fear. Under each cornerstone of fear on which you have erected your insane system of belief, the truth lies hidden. Yet you cannot know this, for by hiding truth in fear, you see no reason to believe that the more you look at fear the less you see it, and the clearer what it conceals becomes.

The Holy Spirit asks of you but this; bring to Him every secret you have locked away from Him. Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the darkness and lighten it away. At your request He enters gladly. He brings the light to darkness if you make the darkness open to Him. But what you hide He cannot look upon. He sees for you, and unless you look with Him He cannot see. The vision of Christ is not for Him alone, but for Him with you. Bring, therefore, all your dark and secret thoughts to Him, and look upon them with Him. He holds the light, and you the darkness. They cannot coexist when both of You together look on them. His judgment must prevail, and He will give it to you as you join your perception to His. (A Course in Miracles, T-14.VII.2:1-2,5-8;6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Here is the ego’s chief defense against the truth. It tells us, “Don’t go there. It’s dangerous. You will lose your self.” But what we will lose is only the illusion of a self that does not exist in truth.  We will lose the sense of helplessness, hopelessness and lovelessness that pervades our experience in the world. When we go past the ego’s fear to the truth, we find the Self that is one with God and shares His strength, Love, joy and peace. We give up nothing to remember we have everything.

The ego’s dark defenses are very effective, but not invincible. They are powerless against the Light the Holy Spirit will shine on them if we let Him in. We need only be willing to turn over all our fear-based thoughts to Him for His loving, gentle correction. The Light of Love shines away the darkness of fear.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit to guide our thoughts and bring Love’s Light to our mind so that we can recognize the truth of What we are.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Making an Investment with Infinite Return

Whom God created limitless is free. I can invent imprisonment for him, but only in illusions, not in truth. No Thought of God has left its Father’s Mind. No Thought of God is limited at all. No Thought of God but is forever pure. Can I lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and like Himself in freedom and in love?

Today let me give honor to Your Son, for thus alone I find the way to You. Father, I lay no limits on the Son You love and You created limitless. The honor that I give to him is Yours, and what is Yours belongs to me as well. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 280, W-pII.280.1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 280 Insights.)

Our true Self is God’s Son, His Thought held eternally in the oneness of His Love. Our true Home is a place of peace and joy without limits. The world of separation we experience shows us that we have not accepted God’s gift that He gave without limits. It is still there, waiting for our acceptance. Nothing else is needed.

But as long as we identify with the ego and its denial of Love, we will not experience God’s gifts. Instead we believe in a false identity represented as a body in the ego’s world of projections.It could never be true, but it will be experienced as real as long as we invest our belief in it.

In any moment we can choose to withdraw our investment and reinvest in the acceptance of God’s gift. The return on this investment is infinite, for we have withdrawn our investment in nothing and given it to all that is Real.

Changing our investment requires a Broker Who knows how to guide us to invest in what has unlimited yield. If we choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide, He will help us see the worthlessness in our mistaken investments. We believed they had value, but with His help, we recognize we were mistaken and let them go.

Now we are free to invest in only what is valuable—the acceptance of God’s gift of changeless Love. When we have withdrawn our mistaken investments and reinvested our belief in our True Self, we free ourselves from limitation entirely. We remember we are at Home in Love.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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