Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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How to Experience the Flow of Love

Father, I must return Your Love for me, for giving and receiving are the same, and You have given all Your Love to me. I must return it, for I want [Your Love] mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead. How still the way Your loving Son is led along to You!

Brother, we find that stillness now. The way is open. Now we follow it in peace together. You have reached your hand to me, and I will never leave you. We are one, and it is but this oneness that we seek, as we accomplish these few final steps which end a journey that was not begun. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 225, W-pII.225. See also ACIM Lesson 225 Insights.)

God does not demand that we love Him. In the oneness of Love, giving and receiving are the same. To be aware of the limitless Love God gives us, we must extend Love. Otherwise we block the flow of Love and cannot experience God’s limitless Gift.

A holy relationship, in which the barriers to Love’s presence have been forgiven, opens our awareness to the experience of the natural flow of giving and receiving Love. We feel the joy of extending Love and the peace of resting in Love’s presence. We love God as we love the truth in our brothers, for they are one and the same. If we judge our brother, we judge against God. As we let Christ’s vision show us the Love that is our brother, we love God and remember Heaven.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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From Conflict to Peace and Happiness

How thoroughly insane is the idea that [the way] to defend from fear is to attack! For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell and rage. And thus is fear protected, not es­caped. Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. It is this:

You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real [to you] and inescapable. Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive [what you defend against as] false.

…love would ask you lay down all defense as merely foolish. And your arms indeed would crumble into dust. For such they are.

Father, we are like You. No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in You. Your peace is ours. And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. We choose again, and make our choice for all our brothers, knowing they are one with us. We bring them Your salva­tion as we have received it now. And we give thanks for them who render us complete. In them we see Your glory, and in them we find our peace. Holy are we because Your Holiness has set us free. And we give thanks. Amen. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 170, W-pI.170.2;5:4-6;13. See also ACIM Lesson 170 Insights.)

The ego thought system is alien to the oneness of Love that is our true Self. Because only Love is real, the ego cannot be real. But if we give our allegiance to the ego, Love becomes an enemy, something that must be protected from to maintain ego’s seeming existence.

The ego’s world is the stage upon which this conflict is acted out. Its seeming existence depends solely on our allegiance to it. We worship the ego as if it were our “creator,” which it believes it is. But what the ego made is not real. It is merely a false image, an idol made to substitute for God’s Creation.

This idol hides God’s Creation, but does not obliterate it. The truth of What we are is unaffected by our illusions. In every instant we can choose again. We can withdraw our allegiance from the ego and accept the Love we have always been. Every time we forgive a perceived offense, we lay down our armature and accept the presence of Love in our brothers and our Self. Our peace and happiness grows.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Building Trust in God’s Promise

I need but call and You will answer me.

I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith. For God has promised He will hear my call, and answer me Himself. Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me. This is the faith that will endure, and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to Him. For thus I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves me still, awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to Him.

Father, I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experi­ence, if I but test them out. Let me attempt therefore to try them, and to judge them not. Your Word is one with You. You give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is gained at last. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 327, W-pII.327. See also ACIM Lesson 327 Insights.)

God’s promise is to help us find our way out of the ego’s world of separation. We accept His promise by testing the means He has given us to lead us out of the illusion and return us Home to our oneness in Love. The Holy Spirit in our mind is that means. He will show us how to view the world without judgment and pre-established interpretations. But we must be willing to accept the help that is offered.

The 365 workbook lessons provide tools to help us accept the Holy Spirit’s help. As we learn to accept that we do not know what anything means on our own, our willingness to receive an answer increases. He teaches us to recognize the ego’s many defenses that keep us believing we are the ego and the body is our identity.

We learn the benefit of setting aside our mistaken identity and uniting with the peace, joy and Love of our true Self. Each lesson is carefully designed to help us release the layers of guilt and fear that keep us bound to a false identity. As we practice these lessons with an open mind and willingness to learn, we build trust in God’s promise to help us remember our Will is His and all He is belongs to us. Loss and harm are impossible. Only Love is our Reality and Identity. The more we practice, the more our trust builds. God’s plan is guaranteed to work; we just need to get out of the way.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Letting Love Guide Our Thoughts

How foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer! Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way to his release? You love me, Father. You could never leave me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty. How could I think that Love has left Itself? There is no will except the Will of Love. Fear is a dream, and has no will that can conflict with Yours. Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening. Death is illusion; life, eternal truth. There is no opposition to Your Will. There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

“Forgiveness shows us that God’s Will is One, and that we share it. Let us look upon the holy sights forgiveness shows today, that we may find the peace of God. Amen.” (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 331, W-pII.331. See also ACIM Lesson 331 Insights.)

Forgiveness is the means for healing the mind of the mistaken belief in separation. Love is one and offers only oneness. The ego relies on condemnation to justify the perception of separation. Love does not condemn, for everything It sees is recognized as one with It. God’s plan for salvation gave us the Holy Spirit, Whose function is to teach us to see oneness through the eyes of Love.

The ego is incapable of this. That is why we must turn over all of our perceptions to the Holy Spirit to be cleaned of the elements of condemnation and returned to us with the pristine vision of our oneness with all that is in God’s Love.

Today we choose to walk with the Holy Spirit, letting Him guide all our thoughts with Love.

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Finding Safety and Peace

Only your allegiance to it gives the ego any power over you. …The ego is nothing more than a part of your belief about yourself.

The ego and the Spirit do not know each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation except by dissociating. Having done this, [the separated mind] denies all truly natural impulses, not because the ego is a separate thing, but because you want to believe that you are [separate]. The ego is a device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only your decision to use the device [ego] that enables it to endure.

Because you are the Kingdom of God I can lead you back to your own creations [extensions of Love]. You do not recognize them now, but what has been dissociated is still there.

As you come closer to a brother you approach me, and as you withdraw from him I become distant to you. Salvation is a collaborative venture. It cannot be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as you will give Him to your brothers. Learn first of [perfect Love in] them and you will be ready to hear God. That is because the function of Love is one. (A Course in Miracles, T-4.VI.1:2,6;4;7:7-8;8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The body and the world we experience with it can only seem to exist by making us unconscious of our true Mind. God’s Son, our one Self, is an extension of the Mind of God, forever united with It. Because the Mind of God is Love, our true Self is Love. The ego dissociates from this fact, denying Its existence. This leaves a void which the ego fills with images of separation, starting with the body. It tells us that we are a body and uses the body to show us that we are separate from everything and everyone else.

There is no safety in this ego-made world because it is all illusion. Our safety lies in remembering our true Identity. As we let the Holy Spirit help us see past the ego’s images of bodies and other forms to the radiant Light of Love that is ever present in Reality, we find safety.

Love is eternal and changeless. As we learn to see the presence of Love beyond the ego’s barriers to Love, we find peace. We forgive or let go of our investment in separation and make way for the Love we are to shine forth. We see the truth in our brothers, recognizing they are one with us in God’s Love. Here we know perfect safety and peace.

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Reclaiming Our True Identity

The search for the special relationship is the sign that you equate yourself with the ego and not with God. For the special relationship has value only to the ego. To the ego, unless a relationship has special value it has no meaning, for it perceives all love as special.

The special relationship is totally meaningless without a body. If you value it, you must also value the body. And what you value you will keep. The special relationship is a device for limiting your self to a body, and for limiting your perception of others to theirs.

…the only value the body has is to enable you to bring your brothers to the bridge with you, and to be released together there.

Whenever your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still attracts you, enter with [the Holy Spirit] into a holy instant, and there let Him release you. He needs only your willingness to share His perspective to give it to you completely. And your willingness need not be complete because His is perfect. It is His task to atone for your unwillingness by His perfect faith, and it is His faith you share with Him there. Out of your recognition of your unwillingness for your release, His perfect willingness is given you. Call upon Him, for Heaven is at His Call. And let Him call on Heaven for you. (A Course in Miracles, T-16.VI.1:1-3;4:1-4;6:6;12. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Bodies cannot truly join; only minds can. This is why the Course puts so much emphasis on teaching us that we are not a body. This is a radical reversal of what we have taught ourselves we are. We need not be afraid of this reversal. The Holy Spirit will guide us gently and lovingly to learn that we don’t really want the body as our identity. Because it is an illusion, the body offers us nothing of value. It only seems to have value because we have taught ourselves the body is our identity.

The Holy Spirit teaches us how to let go of this mistaken identity by teaching us that it limits us and brings us pain and guilt. We learn that what we thought we valued, we don’t really want. Once we realize it has no value, it is easier to dismiss it. This is a process guided by the Holy Spirit that gently leads us to focus on the Light of Love in everyone, including ourselves, instead of the body. This lesson frees us from the limitations of the ego to join the unlimited Love of Heaven. It is a journey that leads us Home.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Exchanging Ego’s Seeing for Holy Spirit’s Vision

What I think I see now is taking the place of vision. I must let it go by realizing it has no meaning, so that vision may take its place.

What I see is the projection of my own errors of thought. I do not understand what I see because it is not understandable. There is no sense in trying to understand it. But there is every reason to let it go, and make room for what can be seen and understood and loved. I can exchange what I see now for this merely by being willing to do so. Is not this a better choice than the one I made before?

The thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything be­cause I am trying to think without God. What I call “my” thoughts are not my real thoughts. My real thoughts are the thoughts I think with God. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 51, W-pI.51.1:3-5;3:3-8;4:2-4. See also ACIM Lesson 51 Insights.)

When we chose to accept the idea of separation from God, we could no longer share our thoughts with God. This left us unaware of the constant, changeless, eternal flow of God’s Love for His Son. It left us with an empty feeling and a sense of guilt for having damaged our relationship with God. We dealt with this by burying this decision in an unconscious part of our mind. The only thoughts that remained conscious in our mind are thoughts not shared with God and therefore thoughts with no meaning, no reality. We feel adrift, with nothing stable in a world of chaos.

The thought system of separation (ego) made up a way to deal with this dilemma. By projecting a world of external images, we perceive a world that happens to us for which we have no recognized responsibility. We do not see that we are the cause of what we perceive because we made the decision unconscious. This protects the ego by excluding God’s Creation and all the thoughts we share with God.

We can reverse our mistaken choice to accept separation by being willing to let the Holy Spirit guide our thoughts. His choices are always for truth so He guides our thoughts to the truth of our oneness with our Creator. The reality of the Love in our brother and ourselves will have greater acceptance in our mind. As we accept this more and more, the images of the ego fade in their importance. The Light of Love that is everywhere to be seen with the Holy Spirit’s vision predominates until we accept only the Thoughts we share with God. We remember our Home is Heaven.

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