Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Forgiveness Is the Better Way

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? ²Do you want peace? ³Forgiveness offers it. ⁴Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? ⁵Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? ⁶Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

All this forgiveness offers you, and more. ²It sparkles on your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. ³It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. ⁴And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. ⁵All this forgiveness offers you, and more.”

Forgiveness offers everything you want. ²Today all things you want are given you. ³Let not your gifts recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting change and bleak appearances. ⁴Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appearances. (A Course in Miracles, W-122.1–2;13. See also ACIM Lesson 122 Insights.)

Everyone truly wants what forgiveness offers. But if we have identified with the ego, the wish for specialness, we have directed our quest where it cannot be found. There comes a time for everyone when they have had enough of fruitless searches and fleeting moments of happiness. We realize there must be a better way.

Forgiveness is the better way. It clears away the empty substitutes that keep us searching where we cannot find a lasting answer to what we seek. It reveals the Light of truth that has always been with us, hidden only by illusions of separation and specialness.

Today we can choose to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to see past illusions to the Light of Love in which we live. Let us join together in the practice of forgiveness and find the Love we never lost in truth.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing a Life of Love and Happiness

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

Here is the answer to your search for peace. ²Here is the key to meaning in a world that seems to make no sense. ³Here is the way to safety in apparent dangers that appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace. ⁴Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at last.

The unforgiving mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread its wings in peace and soar above the turmoil of the world. ²The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. ³It suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet certain of the danger lurking there.

Forgiveness is acquired. ²It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. ³As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. ⁴Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. ⁵Thus you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin.

Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself. ²Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. ³It has no hope, but you become its hope. ⁴And as its hope, do you become your own. ⁵The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. ⁶And as you teach salvation, you will learn. ⁷Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you. (A Course in Miracles, W-121.1–2;6-7. See also ACIM Lesson 121 Insights.)

The Holy Spirit represents our true Self. To be happy, we must have a consistent practice of letting Him be our guide in everything we think, say or do. This practice will free our mind from fear and guilt, returning it to its natural beingness of Love.

The Holy Spirit’s vision shows us the presence of Love eveerywhere. He will teach us that what we see with the body’s eyes is not real and has no effect on the Self God created one with Him. Reason under the ego’s guidance cannot teach us illusions are not real. The seeming existence of the ego depends on maintaining the belief that illusions are real.

But as we let the Holy Spirit guide our perception, we see the world in a different Light, the Light of Love. This Light dispels the shadows of mistaken beliefs in what could never be true. This Light is in us. We need only choose the Light of Love in our mind to see a forgiven world, free of the ego’s denial of Love. By choosing the Holy Spirit as our Guide, we choose life instead of death. Love instead of fear, innocence instead of guilt. We are returned to happiness.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing to Listen and Learn

As long as you believe that guilt is justified in any way, in anyone, whatever he may do, you will not look within, where you would always find Atonement. ²The end of guilt will never come as long as you believe there is a reason for it. ³For you must learn that guilt is always totally insane, and has no reason. ⁴The Holy Spirit seeks not to dispel reality. ⁵If guilt were real, Atonement would not be. ⁶The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, not to establish them as real and then forgive them.

The Holy Spirit does not keep illusions in your mind to frighten you, and show them to you fearfully to demonstrate what He has saved you from. ²What He has saved you from is gone. ³Give no reality to guilt, and see no reason for it. ⁴The Holy Spirit does what God would have Him do, and has always done so. ⁵He has seen separation, but knows of union. ⁶He teaches healing, but He also knows of creation. ⁷He would have you see and teach as He does, and through Him. ⁸Yet what He knows you do not know, though it is yours. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.X.6–7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.

It is valuable to remember that everything we perceive in the outer world is a projection of what we believe about our self. This means that our perceptions can be an effective teaching tool for the Holy Spirit. If we are willing to accept His teaching, we will learn to distinguish between illusions based on mistaken beliefs and the underlying presence of Love, the only Reality.

Every moment we are in the Holy Spirit’s classroom. Are we willing to listen to the Teacher Whose only purpose is to bring us Home to the awareness that we are united in God’s Love? Today we choose to listen and learn, for we want to be happy. We want to remember the Truth of our eternal unity with our Creator. We want to awaken from the dream of separation and know we are eternally at Home in the Heaven of God’s Love.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Love Is Our Natural State

God in His mercy wills that I be saved.

I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, “God wills that I be saved from this,” and merely watch them disappear. ²I need but keep in mind my Father’s Will for me is only happiness, to find that only happiness has come to me. ³And I need but remember that God’s Love surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in His Arms. ⁴I am the Son He loves. ⁵And I am saved because God in His mercy wills it so.

Father, Your Holiness is mine. ²Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. ³I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is none in You. (A Course in Miracles, W-235. See also ACIM Lesson 235 Insights.)

The key to happiness is to remember that Love created us like Itself — forever happy and sinless. Love is our natural state. We have convinced ourselves that we are a separate identity, confined to a body and only exist in a dangerous world where we must constantly be defensive.

But belief does not make true. It only makes illusions seem to be true. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we can let go of our mistaken beliefs. We welcome His healing vision each time we ask, “Holy Spirit, please heal my fear-based beliefs.” With this request, we open our mind to Christ’s vision, which shows us the presence of Love everywhere. We learn to see our brothers as Love and join with It. In Love’s oneness we find the happiness we seemed to have lost because of our mistaken beliefs. We remember that we are Love and nothing else.

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Accepting the Happy Dream

The Holy Spirit, ever practical in His wisdom, accepts your dreams and uses them as means for waking. ²You would have used them to remain asleep. ³I said before that the first change, before dreams disappear, is that your dreams of fear are changed to happy dreams. ⁴That is what the Holy Spirit does in the special relationship. ⁵He does not destroy it, nor snatch it away from you. ⁶But He does use it differently, as a help to make His purpose real to you. ⁷The special relationship will remain, not as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. ⁸It will not be for you alone, for therein lay its misery. ⁹As its unholiness kept it a thing apart, its holiness will become an offering to everyone.

Your special relationship will be a means for undoing guilt in everyone blessed through your holy relationship. ²It will be a happy dream, and one which you will share with all who come within your sight.

⁴In your relationship the Holy Spirit has gently laid the real world; the world of happy dreams, from which awaking is so easy and so natural. ⁵For as your sleeping and your waking dreams represent the same wishes in your mind, so do the real world and the truth of Heaven join in the Will of God. ⁶The dream of waking is easily transferred to [Heaven’s] reality. ⁷For this dream reflects your will joined with the Will of God. ⁸And what this Will would have accomplished has never not been done. (A Course in Miracles, T-18.II.6:1–7:2;9:4-8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

God’s Will is that His Son share His happiness. If we are not happy, we are rejecting God’s Will for us. A separate identity, different from all others, could never be God’s Will. The unity of Love cannot comprehend anything but Its oneness.

God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us heal our mistaken wish for specialness. He sees what we are dreaming and offers us a replacement happy dream. In His dream there is no conflict, no competition nor uncertainty. As we let the Holy Spirit replace our dream with His, our relationships become happy.

No longer do we have conflicting goals where one seems to lose for another to gain. The consistent certainty of Love replaces the instability of the dream of specialness. We see our brothers sharing our unity in Love. As the awareness of Love increases, we feel Its joy grow. We awaken to our unity in Love and extend Its blessing freely and happily. In gratitude we heal.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Uniting with Our Brothers in Love

³Heaven asks nothing. ⁴It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice. ⁵You give up nothing in these times today when, undefended, you present yourself to your Creator as you really are.

He has remembered you. ²Today we will remember Him. ³For this is Eastertime in your salvation. ⁴And you rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness. ⁵Now is the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense, to learn the part for you within the plan of God. ⁶What little plans or magical beliefs can still have value, when you have received your function from the Voice for God Himself?

Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most. ²For you can not conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning. ³Learn today. ⁴And all the world will take this giant stride, and celebrate your Eastertime with you. ⁵Throughout the day, as foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans, remind yourself this is a special day for learning, and acknowledge it with this:

⁶This is my Eastertime. ⁷And I would keep it holy. ⁸I will not defend myself, because the Son of God needs no defense against the truth of his reality. (A Course in Miracles, W-135.24:3–26:8. See also ACIM Lesson 135 Insights.)

The illusion of separation needs constant defense to maintain belief in its “reality.” The body, and the world we experience with it, is a defense against our recognition of the truth of our identity as Love. When we lay down these defenses with an open mind and heart to welcome Christ’s vision, it can be compared to resurrection from the dead. We lay down our insistence on a separate identity which denies our Source of Life. Thus it is our resurrection from death to Life.

Let us join together today in the practice of remembering that all our brothers are one with us as God’s one Son. We are united in Love. Nothing else is real.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Love Demands No Sacrifice

It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness, to emerge in forms quite different from what it is. ²Yet it is necessary to examine each [fear] as long as you would retain the principle that governs all of them. ³When you are willing to regard them, not as separate, but as different manifestations of the same idea, and one you do not want, they go together. ⁴The idea is simply this: You believe it is possible to be host to the ego or hostage to God. …⁷Sacrifice is so essential to your thought system that salvation apart from sacrifice means nothing to you. ⁸Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love without sacrifice. ⁹And it is this that you must look upon; sacrifice is attack, not love. ¹⁰If you would accept but this one idea, your fear of love would vanish. ¹¹Guilt cannot last when the idea of sacrifice has been removed.

How fearful, then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love demands! ²For total love would demand total sacrifice.

³You must choose between total freedom and total bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. ⁴You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision you must make. ⁵And yet it is the recognition of the decision, just as it is, that makes the decision so easy. ⁶Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore very easy to understand. ⁷Do not try to project it from you and see [salvation] outside yourself. ⁸In you are both the question and the answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God. (T-15.X.5:1-4,7-11;7:1-2;9:3-8)

The idea of having a unique, separate identity is sacred to the ego. Loss of this identity is perceived as death. But to accept our inheritance of the oneness of God’s Love, we must give up our attachment to the illusion of a separate identity. The ego sees this as sacrifice. But when we accept God’s Love we let go of nothing (illusion) and accept all that is real.

Love demands no sacrifice. Because It is one, Love gives all of Itself without reservation. To give only a part of Itself would destroy the oneness of Love, which could never happen in truth. Joy is an attribute of Love. The only Source of happiness is the Love we are.

Today we happily let go of the wish for a unique identity to reclaim our true Identity as Love and nothing else.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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