Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Moving From Conflict to Peace

There is no will but God’s.

The idea for today can be regarded as the central thought toward which all our exercises are directed. ²God’s is the only Will. ³When you have recognized this, you have recognized that your will is His. ⁴The belief that conflict is possible has gone. ⁵Peace has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals. ⁶As an expression of the Will of God, you have no goal but His.

There is great peace in today’s idea, and the exercises for today are directed towards finding it. ²The idea itself is wholly true. ³Therefore it cannot give rise to illusions. ⁴Without illusions conflict is impossible.”

²There is no will but God’s. ³I cannot be in conflict.

⁴Then spend several minutes in adding some related thoughts, such as:

⁵I am at peace.
⁶Nothing can disturb me. ⁷My will is God’s.
⁸My will and God’s are one.
⁹God wills peace for His Son.

Joy characterizes peace. ²By this experience [of joy] will you recognize that you have reached it. (A Course in Miracles, W-74.1:1–2:4;3:2-9;6:1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 74 Insights.)

The ego believes it is in a battle with God. But it is only an attempt to change the unchangeable. God’s Will is one — the eternal extension of Love. His Love excludes nothing. This is why God’s Will cannot accommodate the ego’s wish for specialness.

The unchangeable unity of His Love is characterized by peace and joy. As we acknowledge that God’s Will is ours, we open our mind to the experience of His Will. The perfect happiness that is characteristic of Love becomes our living experience. Love is Life.

Today we are watchful for thoughts of conflict and replace them with the reminder that there is no conflict in God’s Will nor in ours. As we recognize His Will is ours, we experience joy beyond words and peace that cannot be disturbed.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Using Perceptions to Heal Our Minds

It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. ²You see attack as a real threat. ³That is because you believe that you can really attack. ⁴And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you. ⁵It is this law that will ultimately save you, but you are misusing it now. ⁶You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.

Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. ²And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. ³Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. ⁴Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together. ⁵They contradict each other.

…you always attack yourself first.

…vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. ²Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. ³Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. ⁴And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so. (A Course in Miracles, W-26.1:1–3:1;4. See also ACIM Lesson 26 Insights.)

A key message of the Course is that the world we see a projection of our own mind. This fact is the basis for either maintaining our identification with a false image of ourselves or releasing ourselves from this limiting self image to return to what we are in truth. Our projections reveal what we believe about ourselves. The fact that beliefs can be changed means that we can free ourselves from our misidentification.

While we identify with the ego and an image of a body, we need help from beyond this closed thought system to be freed from our self-made prison. This Help is the Holy Spirit, God’s Voice in our mind. He is our inner Teacher capable only of teaching the truth. With His help we can unlearn the lessons we have accepted from the ego that we are weak, vulnerable and capable of being harmed or harming.

The practice of being mindful of our perceptions with awareness that they are projections from our mind makes the world a classroom. When we choose the Holy Spirit as our Teacher, the world classroom is used to teach us to overlook the images of the world. He shows us the Light of Love That we are. The images fade into the background as we give precedence to the Light. Our attention shifts from focusing on form to accepting the Light of Love that is our Reality.

Today we can use our perceptions as lessons in Love by paying attention to our inner Teacher.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Keeping Our Mind Open to Holy Spirit’s Lead

²Communication is not limited to the small range of channels the world recognizes. ³If it were, there would be little point in trying to teach salvation. ⁴It would be impossible to do so. ⁵The limits the world places on communication are the chief barriers to direct experience of the Holy Spirit, Whose Presence is always there and Whose Voice is available but for the hearing. ⁶These limits are placed out of fear, for without them the walls that surround all the separate places of the world would fall at the holy sound of His Voice. ⁷Who transcends these limits in any way is merely becoming more natural. ⁸He is doing nothing special, and there is no magic in his accomplishments.

The seemingly new abilities that may be gathered on the way can be very helpful. ²Given to the Holy Spirit, and used under His direction, they are valuable teaching aids.

⁹The Holy Spirit needs these gifts, and those who offer them to Him and Him alone go with Christ’s gratitude upon their hearts, and His holy sight not far behind. (A Course in Miracles, M-25.2:2–3:2;6:9)

The key to release from limitations of the world is willingness to accept the Holy Spirit’s guidance in all things and always. This willingness is the choice to be happy. The Holy Spirit’s function is to teach us how to undo the lessons we have learned that deny truth.

When we are willing, there are many avenues through which the Holy Spirit can communicate with us. The most direct is when we are able to accept His Thoughts in our mind. These thoughts may seem to occur as a voice, an image, a feeling, or a sense of knowing what is truly helpful. Other avenues may come through a conversation with another person, a chance meeting or seeming event that brings us insight. We may have a thought to obtain a book or view a movie. These avenues provide the Holy Spirit an opportunity to get our attention and inspire us when we are open to His lead.

We can strengthen our willingness each day with our dedication to pay attention to His lead. During the day it is helpful to frequently pause in the midst of our doing, relax and ask how He would view our present circumstance; what would we have us say or do? He will always guide us with Love to greater peace and happiness.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Claiming God’s Gift of His Glory

The glory of my Father is my own.

Let not the truth about ourselves today be hidden by a false humility. ²Let us instead be thankful for the gifts our Father gave us. ³Can we see in those with whom He shares His glory any trace of sin and guilt? ⁴And can it be that we are not among them, when He loves His Son forever and with perfect constancy, knowing he is as He created him?

We thank You, Father, for the light that shines forever in us. ²And we honor it, because You share it with us. ³We are one, united in this light and one with You, at peace with all creation and ourselves. (A Course in Miracles, W-239.1:1–2:3. See also ACIM Lesson 239 Insights.)

The ego would have us believe that we are despicable, of no value and the only way to rectify this terrible situation is to grab some form of specialness. But its efforts to compensate cannot succeed. The only answer that will truly resolve this seeming problem is to accept the truth in place of the ego’s illusions.

We have not lost our eternal link with our Creator. It is unbreakable. It keeps us united with God’s glory; everything He is, we are. To deny the glory He has given us is arrogant. But to accept His Love is to accept the truth of the glory, peace and joy He shares with us, His Son.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit to help us let go of our mistaken identification with the ego and accept the glory we share with God.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Love Is Our Heart’s Desire

God’s peace and joy are mine.

Today I will accept God’s peace and joy, in glad ex­change for all the substitutes that I have made for happiness and peace.

Let me be still and listen to the truth.

Let my own feeble voice be still, and let me hear the mighty Voice for Truth Itself assure me that I am God’s perfect Son. (W-pI.118)

When we have an instant response of defensiveness, it comes from belief in our guilt. We are not accepting our Identity as God’s Son. Our true Self is Love and nothing else. It shares God’s innocence. Our Self cannot conceive of harm or attack, for they do not exist in the oneness of Love.

As God’s Son, we live in His happiness and peace. This Self is eternally invulnerable. Its only desire is to be Love and give Love. It sees defensiveness as a call for Love and answers with Love.

Today we claim the peace of God as our own. We ask the Holy Spirit’s help to heal our defensive thoughts, for our desire is to live in peace and joy.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Remembering We Are God’s Son

Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. ²Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. ³And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. ⁴Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.

…every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always been. ³He stands in light, but you were in the dark. ⁴Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see.

²We ask [the Holy Spirit] in the holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:

³Let me behold my savior in this one You have appointed as the one for me to ask to lead me to the holy light in which he stands, that I may join with him.

What you have asked for cannot be denied. …⁴The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God’s Son. ⁵And what you see through Him will free you both. (A Course in Miracles, W-78.1;3:2-4;7:2-3;8:1,4-5. See also ACIM Lesson 78 Insights.)

Our identification with the body as our identity is the basis for all our grievances. The body itself is an expression of the ego’s grievance against God for not offering the specialness the ego demands. All grievances are expressions of an affront to this special image of a separate identity.

We heal this grievance as we let the Holy Spirit help us see the Light of Love beyond the ego’s images of separation. The practice of today’s exercise is an expression of our willingness to let go of our grievance and see past the images of separation to the eternal presence of Love.

We remember we are not a body. We are Love and nothing else; we are forever united with the Love that created us. As we accept help to see the Love in our brothers, we recognize it as a reflection of the Love we are. This exercise, practiced without reservation, can awaken us the the full remembrance that we are God’s Son.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Making Christ’s Vision Our Priority

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

What time but now can truth be recognized? ²The present is the only time there is. ³And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. ⁴He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. ⁵He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. ⁶For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.

³Now is the balance righted, and the scale of judgment left to Him Who judges true. ⁴And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. ⁵Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ.

We will not judge today. ²We will receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world. ³Our practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. ⁴All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own. ⁵We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. ⁶We bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, not our own. (A Course in Miracles, W-164.1;5:3-5;7. See also ACIM Lesson 164 Insights.)

While we seem to be in this world we need to give priority to our inner vision, the vision of Christ. When we have accepted this as our primary way of perceiving in the world, the things of the world will fade into the background. This is how we live in the world while waking up.

Now we give priority to seeing with Christ’s vision. We remember that only Love is real. His vision shows us the innocence of Love in every brother, for Christ does not judge on appearances in the world. As we accept His judgment in place of the judgments we have harbored from the past, we see cause for happiness and peace instead of depression and discord. This priority is how we remember we one with Him Who is our Source.

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