Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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A Practice That Returns Us to the Peace of God

You have probably reacted for years as if you were being crucified. This is a marked tendency of the separated, who always refuse to consider what they have done to themselves. Projection means anger, anger fosters assault, and assault promotes fear. The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the apparent intensity of the assault of some of the Sons of God upon another. This, of course, is impossible, and must be fully understood as impossible. Otherwise, I cannot serve as a model for learning.

The message the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assault in persecution, because you cannot be persecuted.

If you react as if you are persecuted, you are teaching persecution.… Rather, teach your own perfect immunity, which is the truth in you, and realize that it cannot be assailed.… You are merely asked to follow my example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive, and not to accept them as false justifications for anger. There can be no justification for the unjustifiable. Do not believe there is [justification], and do not teach that there is. Remember always that what you believe you will teach. Believe with me, and we will become equal as teachers. (A Course in Miracles, T-6.I.3;4:6;6:2,4,7-11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

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Anger can never be justified because only Love is real. The perception of harm comes from the belief in being separate from Love. Wherever there is perception of lack of Love, there is fear. If we identify with a body, a separate identity, fear is inevitable because we have denied our identity is Love.

Whenever we react with fear to events, situations, ideas or our own thoughts, it is because we believe we are something that we are not. This false identity is the basis for all defenses and attacks. Neither defensiveness nor attack could occur to us if we identity wholeheartedly with the Love we are.

Whenever we react with apprehension to anything, we need to remind ourselves to ask the Holy Spirit for His help to recognize illusions for what they are. Seen as the nothingness they are, illusions will have no effect. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we can overlook illusions and see the truth of Love that is everywhere. Behavior of a body that does not appear loving is simply a call for Love that warrants Love’s extension. Practicing this response will heal our minds and return us to the peace of God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Heart of Our Being Is Love

To heal is to make happy. I have told you to think how many opportunities you have had to gladden yourself, and how many you have refused. This is the same as telling you that you have refused to heal yourself. The light that belongs to you is the light of joy. Radiance is not associated with sorrow. Joy calls forth an integrated willingness to share it, and promotes the mind’s natural impulse to respond as one. Those who attempt to heal without being wholly joyous themselves call forth different kinds of responses at the same time, and thus deprive others of the joy of responding wholeheartedly.

To be wholehearted you must be happy. If fear and love cannot coexist, and if it is impossible to be wholly fearful and remain alive, the only possible whole state is that of love. There is no difference between love and joy. Therefore, the only possible whole state is the wholly joyous. To heal or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and to make one. That is why it makes no difference to what part or by what part of the Sonship the healing is offered. Every part benefits, and benefits equally. (A Course in Miracles, T-5.in.1-2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Our true Self shares God’s eternal joy. If we are not supremely happy, we are believing that we are disconnected from our Creator. This is an artificial state made by the ego’s belief that it is separate from God. The apparent absence of wholehearted joy is a sign that we have accepted the ego’s definition of what we are. Because only Love is real, the ego’s limited definition of our identity could never be true. Our mistaken belief in the identity made by the ego thought of separation is what needs healing.

The Holy Spirit will help us see beyond our mistaken belief that we are absent from Love. He will teach us that we are wholly immersed in the oneness of God’s Love and that Love is What we are. This change of thought is what brings us healing.

Let us remind ourselves that we are Love and only Love. Our single desire is to be Love by sharing It. This is how we respond wholeheartedly in every moment. For the heart of our Being is Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Remembering the Love of God Is Our Home

The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace, and what the warlike would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. Conflict within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power to be victorious. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize the ego is at war with God. [Certainly the ego] has no enemy. Yet just as certain is [the ego’s] fixed belief it has an enemy that it must overcome and will succeed.

Conflict must be between two forces. It cannot exist between one power and nothingness. There is nothing you could attack that is not part of you. And by attacking it you make two illusions of yourself, in conflict with each other. And this occurs whenever you look on anything that God created with anything but love. Conflict is fearful, for it is the birth of fear. Yet what is born of nothing cannot win reality through battle. Why would you fill your world with conflicts with yourself? Let all this madness be undone for you, and turn in peace to the rememberance of God, still shining in your quiet mind.

Illusion meets illusion; truth, itself. The meeting of illusions leads to war. Peace, looking on itself, extends itself. War is the condition in which fear is born, and grows and seeks to dominate. Peace is the state where love abides, and seeks to share itself. (A Course in Miracles, T-23.I.1;8;12:1-5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The Love of God is One and cannot be in conflict with itself. There is no conflict within What is all the same. God’s Son is an extension of Love’s oneness and shares Its freedom from conflict.

All our perceptions of conflict reflect our belief in illusions of differences. This belief is based on our identification with the body, the ego’s chosen home. Release from conflict and fear comes as we learn to recognize illusions are unreal and have no power to do anything. As we let the Holy Spirit help us see past the ego’s false images, we remember the safety and peace of your Home in the Love of God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting God’s Love as Our Identity

The rituals of the god of sickness [ego] are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to [the ego]. Depression means that you have forsworn God. Many are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not understand what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own Identity, and in this sense the wages of sin is death. The sense is very literal; denial of life perceives its opposite, as all forms of denial replace what is with what is not. No one can really do this [deny their Identity], but that you can think you can and believe you have is beyond dispute.

Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others and not yourself have done this to you. You must receive the message you give because it is the message you want. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give you, but you have judged them by the message you give to them. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark [of Love] in them that would bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, for whenever you see your brothers without [the spark of Love], you are denying God.

The Love of God is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to Him. (A Course in Miracles, T-10.V.1-2;7:6-7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

When we perceive a brother as offensive, we have judged him as separate from us. What is one with us could not offend us, for it would be Self denial. We can only take offense about something we believe is separate from us.

The world of form is the representation of our decision to be separate and alone, which is the denial of God. To return to the joy of Heaven, we need to let go of our allegiance to the ego (denial of God). We need to let go of our belief that we are separate, a body with its own unique identity.

As we accept God’s gift of His eternal, changeless Love, His joy and His peace, the god of sickness will no longer find a place in our mind. Our acknowledgement of God as our Creator and our Source brings God’s gratitude to our hearts, for the gift we give Him is the acceptance of His Creation.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Seeing Past Fear to Our Reality as Love

Do you not see the opposite of frailty and weakness is sinlessness? Innocence is strength, and nothing else is strong. The sinless cannot fear, for sin of any kind is weakness.

You will believe that everything you use for sin can hurt you and become your enemy.… It is as certain you will fear what you attack as it is sure that you will love what you perceive as sinless [innocent]. He walks in peace who travels sinlessly along the way love shows him. For love walks with him there, protecting him from fear. And he will see only the sinless, who can not attack.

Walk you in glory, with your head held high, and fear no evil. The innocent are safe because they share their innocence. Nothing they see is harmful, for their awareness of the truth releases everything from the illusion of harmfulness. And what seemed harmful now stands shining in their innocence, released from sin and fear and happily returned to love.

In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. (A Course in Miracles, T-23.in.1:1-3;2:2,4-6;3:1-4. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego sees everything in the world as potentially harmful. Bodies can attack other bodies or say things that harm the identity of others. The earth can crumble beneath our feet or erupt with fire and ash. The world the ego sees needs constant defense to protect the identity we associate with the body.

This identity is weak because it denies the reality of our true Identity in changeless Love. It is Love’s changelessness that makes it invulnerable to any harm. Our true Identity shares this invulnerability. Love is our strength. The appearance of weakness comes when we identity with a loveless illusion of what we are.

Forgiveness, letting go of belief in illusions, returns us to the awareness of the strength of the Love we are. When we forgive, we see past the images of harm projected by the ego. We see that only Love is real. We remember we are in Heaven now.

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

It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating, and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system, and the perception that it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see them in the light; you will not see them in the dark.

Miracles are seen in light.
The body’s eyes do not perceive the light.
But I am not a body. What am I?

The question with which this statement ends is needed for our exercises today. What you think you are is a belief to be undone. But what you really are must be revealed to you. The belief you are a body calls for correction, being a mistake. The truth of what you are calls on the strength in you to bring to your awareness what the mistake conceals.

Remember that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a body, a belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith.

It is from [God’s Thoughts] that your strength will come. It is through [God’s Thoughts’] strong support that you will feel the strength in you. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 91,W-pI.91.1;6:2-10;9:3;10:2-3. See also ACIM Lesson 91 Insights.)

Miracles are seen in the Light of Love. The body is an image that denies the unity of Love and therefore cannot see Love’s Light. Vision is seen in our mind, which is joined with the Mind of God. This is the vision that sees the Light of Love and all Its miracles.

Here we are being taught that to know our true strength and be aware of the miracles of Love, we need to withdraw our belief that we are a body. We are not a body. We are Spirit, united eternally with our Creator. Here is our source of strength. Here is the vision that shows us the Light of Love in every brother.

God’s Thoughts are His extensions of Love, which are the truth in everyone, everywhere. As we withdraw our identification with the body, we make way for the Light to show us What we are in truth. Here we find our strength and our peace. We remember we are Love and nothing else. We are filled with gratitude for God’s gifts.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning to Live in the Light of Love

Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation. Holding grievances is an attempt to prove that God’s plan for salvation will not work. Yet only His plan will work. By holding grievances, I am therefore excluding my only hope of salvation from my awareness. I would no longer defeat my own best interests in this insane way. I would accept God’s plan for salvation, and be happy.

I am choosing between misperception and salvation as I look on this.
If I see grounds for grievances in this, I will not see the grounds for my salvation.
This calls for salvation, not attack. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 86, W-pI.86.3;4:2-4. See also ACIM Lesson 86 Insights.)

Salvation is the means to be saved from harm. We harm ourselves when we believe we are separated from the Love, peace and joy of God. In truth, this could never be. But in a dream of separation it seems that harm is all around us. We see images of people and things outside us that could at the very least be cause for unhappiness or, at worst, cause our death. Nothing in this dream world provides a means for release from this constant appearance of danger.

A grievance is a judgment against someone or something that we perceive as harmful. This grievance keeps us focused on the images of the dream and blocks our awareness of the truth of our eternal safety in Love.

God’s plan for our release from this fearful perception is brought to us through His Voice. If we choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide for all our perceptions, He will show us that they are based on a mistaken belief that we are separate. And He will show us that what lies beyond the mistaken perception is the changeless gift of God’s Love, peace and joy.

Every day we have the opportunity to choose against believing in our misperceptions and welcome the Holy Spirit’s vision of the truth. This is the choice to leave the ego’s darkness and live in the Light of Love.

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