Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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How to Return to Love

You share no evil dreams if you forgive the dreamer, and perceive that he is not the dream he made. And so he cannot be a part of yours, from which you both are free. Forgiveness separates the dreamer from the evil dream, and thus releases him. Remember if you share an evil dream, you will believe you are the dream you share. And fearing [the dream], you will not want to know your own Identity, because you think that It is fearful. And you will deny your Self, and walk upon an alien ground which your Creator did not make, and where you seem to be a something you are not. You will make war upon your Self, which seems to be your enemy; and will attack your brother, as a part of what you hate. There is no compromise. You are your Self or an illusion. What can be between illusion and the truth? A middle ground, where you can be a thing that is not you, must be a dream and cannot be the truth.

You have conceived a little gap between illusions and the truth to be the place where all your safety lies, and where your Self is safely hidden by what you have made.

There is no gap that separates the truth from dreams and from illusions. Truth has left no room for them in any place or time. For [truth] fills every place and every time, and makes them wholly indivisible.

Look at the little gap, and you behold the innocence and emptiness of sin that you will see within yourself, when you have lost the fear of recognizing love. (A Course in Miracles, T-28.V.3;4:1;6:4-6;7:6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Evil dreams are dreams of being separate from Love. The absence of Love is fear and fear is projected as hate. Because only the unity of Love is real, dreams of fear and lack of Love could never be true.

When we identify with a self in a dream of fear, we are afraid of our true Identity as Love. To accept the Love we are, we must let go of a self-image that lacks Love. To the fearful self-image, accepting Love is perceived as death, for it is impossible to hold the thought of lovelessness and accept the truth that we are Love. We can only choose between these two alternatives.

When we look upon a brother with the vision of Christ, we overlook his dream of being a separate self lacking Love. We know he is not the limited self-image he has made. We see the Truth that he is only Love, eternally joined with the Love we are. The illusionary gap of separation disappears. No longer supported by belief, the dream of fear and hate is gone. We return to Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing the Path of Truth

The Atonement does not make holy. You were created holy. It merely brings unholiness to holiness; or what you made to what you are. Bringing illusion to truth, or the ego to God, is the Holy Spirit’s only function. Keep not your making from your Father, for hiding it has cost you knowledge of Him and of yourself. The knowledge is safe, but where is your safety apart from it? The making of time to take the place of timelessness lay in the decision to be not as you are.

Bringing the ego to God is but to bring error to truth, where [error] stands corrected because it is the opposite of what it meets [truth]. It is undone because the contradiction can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is not attacked. It merely vanishes because it is not true. Different realities are meaningless, for reality must be one. It cannot change with time or mood or chance. Its changelessness is what makes it real.

Merely by being what it is, does truth release you from everything that it is not. The Atonement is so gentle you need but whisper to it, and all its power will rush to your assistance and support. You are not frail with God beside you. Yet without Him you are nothing. The Atonement offers you God. (A Course in Miracles, T-14.IX.1:1-7;2:1-8;3:1-5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The Holy Spirit’s function is to teach us to recognize illusions for what they are. Were we to accept His teaching wholeheartedly without exception, the world we see would fade into the nothingness from which it came.

But giving up what we believe is our identity seems to threaten our existence. The fear this fosters makes us resistant to the Holy Spirit’s teaching. It makes us afraid of Love, afraid of Heaven. The Holy Spirit is not offended by our resistance. He simply waits patiently for us to welcome His gentle correction of our mistaken perceptions. We are not coerced into a radical change.

The Holy Spirit offers us lessons that can reach us where we believe we are. As we become unwilling to accept the status quo of a life of fear, guilt, sadness and lack, we become more receptive to the Holy Spirit’s lessons. We reach a point where we welcome a better way. The Holy Spirit responds to this welcome the moment we open the door.

As we accept His perception in place of our old and tired beliefs, a new world of Love, peace and forgiveness lights our mind. As we accept more and more Light, we become increasingly motivated to make all decisions with the Holy Spirit as our Guide. We choose the path of truth that leads us Home to the Love in which we were created.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Claiming God’s Love as Our Own

Son of God, be not content with nothing! What is not real cannot be seen and has no value. God could not offer His Son what has no value, nor could His Son receive it. You were redeemed the instant you thought you had deserted Him. Everything you made [illusions] has never been, and is invisible because the Holy Spirit does not see it. Yet what He does see is yours to behold, and through His vision your perception is healed. You have made invisible the only truth that this world holds. Valuing nothing, you have sought nothing. By making nothing [illusion] real to you, you have seen it. But it is not there. And Christ is invisible to you because of what you have made visible to yourself.

The unreal world is a thing of despair, for it can never be. And you who share God’s Being with Him could never be content without reality. What God did not give you has no power over you, and the attraction of love for love remains irresistible. For it is the function of love to unite all things unto itself, and to hold all things together by extending its wholeness.

Redeemed perception is easily translated into knowledge, for only perception is capable of error and perception has never been. Being corrected it gives place [yields] to knowledge, which is forever the only reality. The Atonement is but the way back to what was never lost. Your Father could not cease to love His Son.” (A Course in Miracles, T-12.VIII.6;7:8-11;8:6-9. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The world we experience as a body seems real only because we want separation to be real. Choosing to believe illusions are real blocks our awareness of Love’s oneness. We remain united in God’s Love, but are unaware of It. The same instant we chose to believe separation is real, God placed in our mind the antidote to that mistaken belief.

The Holy Spirit holds our unity with God inviolate. He offers us the means to remember God, our Father. The restoration of our memory redeems us from the hell we made by wanting to be separate with a private domain we could control. Yet a domain without Love is nothing, for only Love is real.

With the Holy Spirit’s help, we can receive His vision to correct our misperception and see the eternal presence of Love everywhere. As we accept His vision, the world of separation fades from our awareness until we remember completely that we remain at Home in God’s eternal Love. God’s Love is ours and we claim It as our own, for such It is.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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How to Manifest the Christ in You

It cannot be that it is hard to do the task that Christ appointed you to do, since it is He Who does it. And in the doing of it will you learn the body merely seems to be the means to do it. For the Mind is [Christ’s]. And so it must be yours. His Holiness directs the body through the mind at one with Him.

How can you manifest the Christ in you except to look on holiness and see Him there? …Set in [your brother’s] holiness, the Christ in him proclaims Himself as you.

Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be; the world you want to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content and satisfied. It chooses where you think your safety lies, at your decision. It reveals yourself to you as you would have you be. …Perception is a part of what it is your purpose to behold, for means and end are never separate. And thus you learn what seems to have a life apart has none.

You are the means for God; not separate, nor with a life apart from His. His life is manifest in you who are His Son. (A Course in Miracles, T-25.I.1:1-5;2:1,9;3:1-3,5-6;4:1-2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Our function is to see the Christ, the Son of God, in every brother. This is how we manifest the Christ. As we learn to see the Christ in every brother, we learn of the Christ in us. Our perception reflects back to us the truth of What we are, when we perceive Him in our brother.

What we perceive teaches us what we are. Our perception is determined by the goal we seek. If our goal is to be separate, our perception teaches us that separation is real. If our goal is to perceive the Truth in our brother, our perception teaches us we are one in the Christ That is the Truth in every brother.

In every moment we choose the goal we seek. Today let us join with our brothers in the one goal that teaches us we are God’s Son, complete and whole, united with our Father.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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From Chaos to Peace of Mind

I could see peace instead of this.… Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter. It must begin with your own thoughts, and then extend outward. It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.

…whenever you feel your peace of mind is threatened in any way…, the exercise should take this form:

I could see peace in this situation instead of what I now see in it.

“If you find you need more than one application of today’s idea to help you change your mind in any specific context,… it will help you if you tell yourself specifically:

I can replace my feelings of depression, anxiety or worry [or my thoughts about this situation, personality or event] with peace. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 34, W-pI.34.1:2-4;5:1,3-4;6:2,3-4. See also ACIM Lesson 34 Insights.)

Any lack of peace is a sure sign that we have aligned ourselves with the ego. We are believing in a false identity that is weak, vulnerable and disconnected from the Source of peace and strength. This need not be.

We have the Teacher in our mind, ready to help us see past the false images to the eternal Presence of God’s perfect peace. Frequently reminding ourselves that we can see peace instead of whatever is disturbing us redirects our attention from the ego to our true Self. Our true Self has never lost Its eternal connection with changeless Love.

The affirmation,“I could choose peace instead of this,” has the power to set us free of fear and guilt. It has the power to lead us to forgiveness of all our mistaken perceptions. It brings us to the gate of Heaven, where we are welcomed Home by the loving Presence That has never forgotten that we are Love and nothing else.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Finding Our True Completion

For this world is the opposite of Heaven, being made to be its opposite, and everything here takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true. In Heaven, where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as union. Here, where the illusion of love is accepted in love’s place, love is perceived as separation and exclusion.

It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for special love from God, that the ego’s hatred triumphs. For the special relationship is the renunciation of the Love of God, and the attempt to secure for the self the specialness that He denied. It is essential to the preservation of the ego that you believe this specialness is not hell, but Heaven. For the ego would never have you see that separation could only be loss, being the one condition in which Heaven could not be.

To everyone Heaven is completion. There can be no disagreement on this, because both the ego and the Holy Spirit accept it. They are, however, in complete disagreement on what completion is, and how it is accomplished. The Holy Spirit knows that completion lies first in union, and then in the extension of union. To the ego completion lies in triumph, and in the extension of the “victory” even to the final triumph over God. In this it sees the ultimate freedom of the [separate] self, for nothing would remain to interfere with the ego. This is [the ego’s] idea of Heaven. And therefore union, which is a condition in which the ego cannot interfere, must be hell. (A Course in Miracles, T-16.V.3:6-5:8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Union is hell to the ego because the ego’s false idea of separation cannot exist in union. The ego sees union as annihilation. When we accept the oneness of Love as our reality, the ego no longer seems to exist. To protect its “existence,” the ego offers special relationships as a substitute for the reality of Love’s oneness.

Special relationships offer a fantasy of completion that may seem to satisfy because they fill in what we perceive is lacking when we believe we are separate from God. If we accept the ego’s offerings in special relationships as what we want, we are deceiving ourselves with fantasies. The sense of lack or emptiness we feel cannot be satisfied with fantasies. Only the unity of Love will truly restore our wholeness. Only in this unity is completion true.

Holy Spirit, help me see through the eyes of Love today. Help me recognize illusions for what they are. With Your help, I choose the truth of Love rather than illusions. With Your help, I will remember Heaven.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Shifting from Separation to the Oneness of Love

Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. And do not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. To heal is to make whole. And what is whole can have no missing parts that have been kept outside. Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being glad there cannot be some forms of sickness which the miracle must lack the power to heal.

God’s Son is perfect, or he cannot be God’s Son. Nor will you know him, if you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in all its consequences and its forms. There is no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth about yourself.

I thank You, Father, for Your perfect Son,
and in his glory will I see my own.

Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil that can overcome the Will of God; the glad acknowledgment that guilt has not succeeded by your wish to make illusions real. And what is this except a simple statement of the truth?

Look on your brother with this hope in you, and you will understand he could not make an error that could change the truth in him. It is not difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects. (A Course in Miracles, T-30.VI.8:1-10:2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego is the belief that it is possible for separate parts, disconnected from each other, to exist. This is the world we see while we identify with a body as our self. We see it only because we have made illusions seem real through our belief. But illusions cannot have real effects. Healing comes when we welcome the Holy Spirit’s vision that shows us only the oneness of Love is real. This vision makes whole the fragmented parts the ego would show us.

With the Holy Spirit’s teaching, we learn to see past the veil of illusions to the truth in our brother. Through this vision we learn of the truth in ourselves. The Love that we are automatically joins with the Love that is our brother. We shift from the ego’s dedication to division to the Holy Spirit’s conviction that we remain one in the Love that God created us to be.

Today we choose to accept Holy Spirit’s vision and remember our true Self.

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