Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Forgive Until Nothing Is Left to Forgive

Forgiveness is this world’s equivalent of Heaven’s justice. ²It translates the world of sin into a simple world, where justice can be reflected from beyond the gate behind which total lack of limits lies. ³Nothing in boundless love could need forgiveness. ⁴And what is charity within the world gives way to simple justice past the gate that opens into Heaven. ⁵No one forgives unless he has believed in sin, and still believes that he has much to be forgiven. ⁶Forgiveness thus becomes the means by which he learns he has done nothing to forgive. ⁷Forgiveness always rests upon the one who offers it, until he sees himself as needing it no more. ⁸And thus is he returned to his real function of creating [extending Love], which his forgiveness offers him again.

…what has been forgiven must join [in oneness], for nothing stands between to keep them separate and apart. ⁵The sinless must perceive that they are one, for nothing stands between to push the other off. ⁶And in the space that sin left vacant do they join as one, in gladness recognizing what is part of them has not been kept apart and separate.

This tiny spot of sin that stands between you and your brother still is holding back the happy opening of Heaven’s gate. ²How little is the hindrance that withholds the wealth of Heaven from you. ³And how great will be the joy in Heaven when you join the mighty chorus to the Love of God! (A Course in Miracles, T-26.IV.1:1-8;2:4-6;6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Our true Self, God’s Son, remains as he was created. Nothing has happened to change God’s Son who remains forever united with his Creator. This Self does not need to be forgiven nor to forgive. He still remains as Love created Him, wholly innocent and wholly loved.

But we believe we are another self made by the denial of God’s gift of Love. The split caused by this denial we believe is a sin. It is perceived as an attack on God. The illusion that separation from God is real is the foundation for all perception of harm and loss; it is the foundation of guilt. This little self-identity needs to forgive this mistaken thought. Because we believe we are a separate self, forgiveness is the means by which we let go of the false belief in being alone and loveless, weak and subject to harm and loss. This is not what we are as God’s Son, but our belief makes it seem real.

Today we call upon the Holy Spirit to help us heal the false beliefs upon which all fear and guilt depend. With His help we will learn that, in truth, we have done nothing that had any effect that would justify guilt and fear. Because there has been no effect, we will learn there is nothing to forgive. We remain as God created us.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Recognizing Our Dearest Friends

God is the Love in which I forgive.

²God does not forgive because He has never condemned. ³The blameless cannot blame, and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive. ⁴Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. ⁵It is the reflection of God’s Love on earth. ⁶It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me up to Him.

God is the strength in which I trust.

²It is not my own strength through which I forgive. ³It is through the strength of God in me, which I am remembering as I forgive. ⁴As I begin to see, I recognize His reflection on earth. ⁵I forgive all things because I feel the stirring of His strength in me. ⁶And I begin to remember the Love I chose to forget, but which has not forgotten me.

There is nothing to fear.

²How safe the world will look to me when I can [truly] see it! ³It will not look anything like what I imagine I see now. ⁴Everyone and everything I see will lean toward me to bless me. ⁵I will recognize in everyone my dearest Friend. ⁶What could there be to fear in a world that I have forgiven, and that has forgiven me? (A Course in Miracles, W-60.1–3. See also ACIM Lesson 60 Insights.)

It is possible to see God’s reflection on earth. But we will not see it while we prefer to identify with the ego. Forgiveness is Love’s reflection in the world the ego made. The strength of God supports our forgiveness when we are willing to accept His help. He gave us His Teacher to lovingly guide us to true perception that overlooks the ego’s false images to see the unity of Love. Our forgiveness awakens us to remember the Love we are and the Love that created us one with Itself.

Today we remind ourselves that God’s strength supports our forgiveness. As we remember we awaken to the Love we are. We recognize our brothers as our dearest Friends, for we are eternally united with them in God’s Love.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Turning Projections into Lessons in Love

I will there be light.

³The will you share with God has all the power of creation in it. ⁴The ego’s idle wishes are unshared, and therefore have no power at all. ⁵Its wishes are not idle in the sense that they can make a world of illusions in which your belief can be very strong. ⁶But they are idle indeed in terms of creation. ⁷[The ego’s wishes] make nothing that is real.

Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. ²The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego’s need for grievances, which are necessary to maintain [the world], peoples it with figures that seem to attack you and call for “righteous” judgment. ³These figures become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. ⁴They stand between your awareness and your brothers’ reality. ⁵Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self.

Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. ²The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without. ³Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world. ⁴Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light. (A Course in Miracles, W–pI.73.1:3–2:5;5:1-4. See also ACIM Lesson 73 Insights.)

The ego’s projections are an attempt to disown its inherent guilt for denying God’s Love. Our projections thus are a mirror of what we believe about ourself. We are not the ego — never were, never can be. We were created by Love and forever one in Love.

The fact that the world is our projection can be key to our awakening if we let the Holy Spirit use our projections as teaching aids. This is how all things in the world become lessons God would have us learn. The core of His lesson is we are Love and nothing else. The Holy Spirit teaches us to recognize that our projections are effects of our mistaken beliefs. With His help, we learn to let go of the projections and see beyond them to the Love that unites us with every brother.

Appearances of lack of Love in any form are recognized as calls for Love. Since projections come from our own mind, these appearances reflect our own calls for Love. Today we are willing to learn the Holy Spirit’s lessons in Love.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Certainty of Our Return to Love

God’s teachers have learned how to be simple. ²They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. ³They do not try to make themselves. ⁴Their joy comes from their understanding Who created them. ⁵And does what God created need defense? ⁶No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions. ⁷The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. ⁸Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds that nothing was there. ⁹Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived. ¹⁰But he learns faster as his trust increases. ¹¹It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. ¹²It is safety. ¹³It is peace. ¹⁴It is joy. ¹⁵And it is God.

Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait, and wait without anxiety. ²Patience is natural to the teacher of God. ³All he sees is certain outcome, at a time perhaps unknown to him as yet, but not in doubt. ⁴The time will be as right as is the answer. ⁵And this is true for everything that happens now or in the future. ⁶The past as well held no mistakes; nothing that did not serve to benefit the world, as well as him to whom it seemed to happen. ⁷Perhaps it was not understood at the time. ⁸Even so, the teacher of God is willing to reconsider all his past decisions, if they are causing pain to anyone. ⁹Patience is natural to those who trust. ¹⁰Sure of the ultimate interpretation of all things in time, no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear. (A Course in Miracles, M-4.VI.1:1-15; VIII.1:1-10)

In truth, God’s Creation is the one Self we share with every brother. This Self is interested only in sharing God’s gifts freely and without limit. Any attempt to limit this giving makes our true Self unknown to us. As we learn that the interests we share with everyone is to freely give and receive God’s gifts, we become His teacher. We teach what we need to learn.

We teach defenselessness to learn that we share the invulnerability, the changelessness of God. We demonstrate patience as we remember that beyond appearances in the world, God’s Love remains unaffected by our perceptions. As we let the Holy Spirit help us let go of our mistaken beliefs, we gain certainty that no matter what the appearance, we will remember that we are God’s Son. We can count on this reality. We are guided in ways to be truly helpful. We can trust that everyone remains safe in God. Appearances in the world will fade away as we awaken to the Self God created one with Him.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing the Holy Spirit as Our Companion

The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host, because He will not be heard. ²The Eternal Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien company. ³He needs your protection, only because your care is a sign that you want Him. ⁴Think like Him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that He becomes your only Guest. ⁵Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen His welcome. ⁶He will remain, but you have allied yourself against Him. ⁷Whatever journey you choose to take, He will go with you, waiting. ⁸You can safely trust His patience, for He cannot leave a part of God. ⁹Yet you need far more than patience.

You will never rest until you know your function and fulfill it, for only in this can your will and your Father’s be wholly joined. ²To have Him is to be like Him, and He has given Himself to you. ³You who have God must be as God, for His function became yours with His gift. ⁴Invite this knowledge back into your mind, and let nothing that obscures it enter. ⁵The Guest Whom God sent you will teach you how to do this, if you but recognize the little spark and are willing to let it grow. ⁶Your willingness need not be perfect, because His is. ⁷If you will merely offer Him a little place, He will lighten it so much that you will gladly let it be increased. ⁸And by this increase, you will begin to remember creation. (A Course in Miracles, T-11.II.5:1–6:8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

God’s only function is to extend the Love He is. As His extension, our function is the same as His. Thus our only meaningful purpose of the world is to bring the Light of Love to it. God answered our mistaken wish for specialness with the Holy Spirit to help us learn that this wish could never make Reality.

As God’s Teacher, the Holy Spirit teaches us to recognize our mistaken beliefs bring us nothing that we really want. His Voice is ever present but it can be heard only when we are willing to listen.

The journey to willingness is unique for each of us in the world. It is determined by the beliefs in separation we have accepted as true. They are the cause of everything we experience in the world. The Holy Spirit helps us heal these mistaken beliefs. As we accept this healing, we let the Light of Love in us shine brighter in the world.

For some of us the journey involves addictions that control our lives. Others harbor fear and guilt from experiences they have had in their lives. Sooner or later, everyone reaches the point where they recognize there must be a better way.

This recognition is the turning point where we become willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s help. With each acceptance, our willingness grows for the increasing happiness and peace motivates us. We become less tolerant of the ego’s misguided perceptions. The Holy Spirit becomes our preferred companion to guide us on the way of awakening to Love.

Today we practice willingness to follow God’s Voice in our thoughts and actions.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Joining God’s Eternal Extension of Love

Like any good teacher, the Holy Spirit knows more than you do now, but He teaches only to make you equal with Him. ²You had already taught yourself wrongly, having believed what was not true. ³You did not believe in your own perfection. ⁴Would God teach you that you had made a split mind, when He knows your mind only as whole? ⁵What God does know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His children are wholly joyous. ⁶Giving His joy is an ongoing process, not in time but in eternity. ⁷God’s extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. ⁸So He thought, “My children sleep and must be awakened.”

How can you wake children in a more kindly way than by a gentle Voice that will not frighten them, but will merely remind them that the night is over and the light has come? ²You do not inform them that the nightmares that frightened them so badly are not real, because children believe in magic. ³You merely reassure them that they are safe now. ⁴Then you train them to recognize the difference between sleeping and waking, so they will understand they need not be afraid of dreams. ⁵And so when bad dreams come, they will themselves call on the light to dispel them.

⁴The Holy Spirit makes no distinction among dreams. ⁵He merely shines them away. ⁶His light is always the Call to awaken, whatever you have been dreaming. ⁷Nothing lasting lies in dreams, and the Holy Spirit, shining with the light from God Himself, speaks only for what lasts forever. (A Course in Miracles, T-6.V.1:1–2:5;4:4-7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The Holy Spirit does not judge our dreams, no matter how fearful, angry, guilty or sad they may be. He simply lovingly and gently calls to us to awaken. He brings His Light to shine upon the dreams which deny the eternal presence of Love’s Light. This is God’s call to awaken, for God’s Will is to share His joy and peace with His one Son.

If we are willing to listen, the Holy Spirit will teach us that what we are experiencing in the dream is not real. And He will lighten our path to awaken to the reality that we dwell eternally in the Home God created for us. Here we abide in peace and joy as we join with His eternal extension of Love.

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

If you cannot hear the Voice for God, it is because you do not choose to listen. ²That you do listen to the voice of your ego is demonstrated by your attitudes, your feelings and your behavior.

²When your mood tells you that you have chosen wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then know this need not be. ³In every case you have thought wrongly about some brother God created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. ⁴Think honestly what you have thought that God would not have thought, and what you have not thought that God would have you think.

The habit of engaging with God and His creations is easily made if you actively refuse to let your mind slip away.

²There is no limit to the power of a Son of God, but he can limit the expression of his power as much as he chooses. ³Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, releasing the strength of God into everything you think and do.

⁴His Mind shone on you in your creation and brought your mind into being. ⁵His Mind still shines on you and must shine through you. ⁶Your ego cannot prevent Him from shining on you, but it can prevent you from letting Him shine through you. (A Course in Miracles, T-4.IV.1:1-2;2:2-4;7:1;8:2-3;9:4-6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

We are so engaged with the ego that we’ve married it. But the ego’s dowry is a shiny chest full of nothing, for it has nothing real to offer. It is time to dissolve the marriage on the basis of its empty offering.

It is time to be vigilant for God and His Love. His offering is everything that is real. In truth, we are eternally married to God, for what God created one cannot be divided. We dissolve our marriage to the ego by choosing Love as our Guide for our thoughts and actions, moment by moment. By this choice we acknowledge the marriage God created to be eternal and indivisible. With this practice we see the face of Christ — the face of Love — in every brother and ourselves. We choose God’s dowry, which brought us all that is Real — His eternal Love.

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