Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Forgiveness Brings Lasting Happiness

My only function is the one God gave me.

²I have no function but the one God gave me. ³This recognition releases me from all conflict, because it means I cannot have conflicting goals. ⁴With one purpose only, I am always certain what to do, what to say and what to think. ⁵All doubt must disappear as I acknowledge that my only function is the one God gave me.

My happiness and my function are one.

²All things that come from God are one. ³They come from Oneness, and must be received as one. ⁴Fulfilling my function is my happiness because both come from the same Source. ⁵And I must learn to recognize what makes me happy, if I would find happiness. (A Course in Miracles, W-83.1;3. See also ACIM Lesson 83 Insights.)

Love created us like Itself. Our true Self, like God, is Love and nothing else. A characteristic of Love is to extend Itself eternally without limit. The reflection of Love in the dream of separation is forgiveness. The dream denies the presence of Love. When we forgive our mistaken beliefs in separation, we let go of the barrier that hides the eternal presence of Love.

As an extension of God’s Love, our only function is to forgive the barriers we have accepted which deny Love’s presence. Love always forgives because it knows that nothing has happened to change Love. When we accept the function of forgiveness, we accept our true Nature.

Forgiveness brings happiness because we accept the joy that is an attribute of the Love we are. Nothing but forgiveness can bring us true and lasting happiness. Forgiveness clears the way for acceptance of the fact that we are God’s one Son, eternally loved and loving.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gratitude for God’s Eternal Gifts

There is one life, and that I share with God.

…the idea of death takes many forms. ⁴It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. ⁵It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. ⁶All sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness, a slight discomfort or the merest frown, acknowledge death. ⁷And thus deny you live.

Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. ²It is the belief conditions change, emotions alternate because of causes you cannot control, you did not make, and you can never change. ³It is the fixed belief ideas can leave their source, and take on qualities the source does not contain, becoming different from their own origin, apart from it in kind as well as distance, time and form.

We share one life because we have one Source, a Source from which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect. ²As we were, so are we now and will forever be. ³A sleeping mind must waken, as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. ⁴And now it is no more a mere reflection. ⁵It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. ⁶No vision now is needed. ⁷For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness. (A Course in Miracles, W-167.2:3-7;4;12. See also ACIM Lesson 167 Insights.)

Whenever we experience anything less than supreme happiness and perfect peace, we are believing that we have separated from our Creator. This could never happen in truth, so our belief makes a world of illusion in which everything appears separate, different, changeable and limited to a “life” bound to end. Yet this belief does not change the real Life we live in God. It merely covers it with false images in a dream that denies our unbreakable unity with our Creator.

By the grace of God we can awaken from the dream. He gave us His Comforter Whose mission is to help us heal our mistaken beliefs, to forgive them. Today we are mindful of our thoughts and feelings. When they do not reflect God’s joy and peace, we take them to the Holy Spirit and ask for help to let them go.

Our willingness welcomes the gift of Christ’s vision, which shows us the unity of Love we share with every brother and our Creator. Each time we accept this vision, our joy increases and our peace of mind is deeper. Gratitude for all God’s gifts fills our heart.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Let Christ’s Vision Correct Our Perceptions

My sight goes forth to look upon Christ’s face.

I ask Your blessing on my sight today. ²It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. ³It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. ⁴I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. ⁵Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son.

Today our sight is blessed indeed. ²We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. ³We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity. (A Course in Miracles, W-269. See also ACIM Lesson 269 Insights.)

What we call seeing in the world is myopic. We cannot see beyond the false images projected from our belief that separation is real. But Christ’s vision has been given us to show us what lies beyond our shortsightedness. Beyond the images of the world is the reality of God’s Son, our true Identity. It is the reality of changeless, eternal Love.

Today we choose to accept Christ’s vision to correct our mistaken perceptions. We want to remember Love. We want to experience the joy that comes with accepting the continuous, limitless flow of Love God extends to His Son eternally. When we choose reality over illusion, we choose freedom from fear and guilt. We choose joy instead of loneliness and depression. We choose peace instead of conflict and loss. Today we accept Christ’s vision to remember our unity with every brother and our Creator.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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A Practice That Welcomes Peace

In peace I was created. ²And in peace do I remain. ³It is not given me to change my Self. ⁴How merciful is God my Father, that when He created me He gave me peace forever. ⁵Now I ask but to be what I am. ⁶And can this be denied me, when it is forever true?

Father, I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation. ²What was given then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond all change. ³The peace in which Your Son was born into Your Mind is shining there unchanged. ⁴I am as You created me. ⁵I need but call on You to find the peace You gave. ⁶It is Your Will that gave it to Your Son. (A Course in Miracles, W-230.1–2. See also ACIM Lesson 230 Insights.)

It is fruitless to ask the ego how to find peace, although it is quick to offer its advice. If we feel stressed and seek help, the ego is first to tell us what to do. But its directions are always aligned with the ego’s goal of seek and do not find.

To find true and lasting peace we need to disengage from the ego. It does not know what peace is, for the ego is the idea of conflict. When we are willing to pause and quiet the chatter in our mind, we open the door to welcome the peace of God that is already in us.

God gave us the Holy Spirit to lead us to peace. He knows how to guide us out of the dream of conflict to remember the gift of peace that is forever ours. The simple practice of pausing to disengage from the ego and welcome the Holy Spirit’s help will free us to experience the peace that is our innate Being. Today is a good day to practice.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting Our Holiness Changes the World

Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. ²It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. ³Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator.

Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. ²Through your holiness the power of God is made available. ³And there is nothing the power of God cannot do. ⁴Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. ⁵It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else.

If you are holy, so is everything God created. ²You are holy because all things He created are holy.

…search your mind for any sense of loss or unhappiness of any kind as you see it.…[Say to yourself:]

⁵In the situation involving _________ in which I see myself, there is nothing that my holiness cannot do.
⁶In the situation involving _________ in which _________ sees himself, there is nothing my holiness cannot do. (A Course in Miracles, W-38.1:1–2:5;3:1-2;4:1,5-6. See also ACIM Lesson 38 Insights.)

Because God created His Son one with Himself, His holiness is our holiness. His Love is our Love. In truth, nothing else exists. Our experience of this world is a dream in direct opposition to God and His Love. The only substance this world has is given in our mind by our belief in it. Our belief is fully capable of making up images that seem real and impenetrable.

Hypnotists demonstrate the power of belief when they work with a subject who is willing to accept a belief that something exists. But what the subject sees is only in his mind. Observers who do not share the belief see nothing there. Likewise, we believe we see a world that God does not see because he does not share our belief in separation. This belief in the world stands as a shield to “protect” us from the unity of God’s Love. This makes our unity with God unknown to us, but it does not change it.

Our holiness, our oneness with our Creator, is unchangeable. This certainty is the basis on which we heal the world. As we learn to forgive our beliefs that deny Love, we bring healing to the world of denial. There is nothing our holiness cannot do.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting God’s Word That Created His Son

I am spirit.

²I am the Son of God. ³No body can contain my spirit, nor impose on me a limitation God created not.

I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

²What can my function be but to accept the Word of God, Who has created me for what I am and will forever be? (A Course in Miracles, W-114.1–2. See also ACIM Lesson 114 Insights.)

God gave His Word that His Son be forever one with Himself, sharing all His attributes, forever changeless and invulnerable. Our only function in the world is to accept God’s gift. In the dream of separation we need to forgive our allegiance to the ego’s denial of God’s Creation.

Only our belief in the ego’s limitation of the body as our identity makes us unaware that we are not a body. We are not limited. All the strength and Love of God are ours. We claim our inheritance now as we let the Holy Spirit show us the truth of What we are through Christ’s vision. With that vision we see every brother as one with us, join with Him in Love and answering his calls for Love with Love. This our part in God’s plan for salvation.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Thoughts We Share with God

My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. ²No one really sees anything. ³He sees only his thoughts projected outward. ⁴The mind’s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. ⁵Your [ego] mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. ⁶It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything.

The one wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. ²To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. ³Very few have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. ⁴The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything.

…train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. ²While thoughtless ideas preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. ³Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank, rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas, is the first step to opening the way to vision. (A Course in Miracles, W-8.1–3. See also ACIM Lesson 3 Insights.)

The ego’s preoccupation with the past dominates our experience in this world. We are constantly labeling and categorizing what we see, hear, feel and think based upon our past experience. We spend 12 or more years in school learning how to do this. We believe it is necessary for our safety and even survival. This is true for us if we identify with the ego thought system of separation exemplified by the body.

The Course is teaching us how to completely reverse our thinking. In the beginning of our practice of the Course, the best most of us can do is practice the affirmations in the lessons even if we don’t believe them. This practice is essential to opening our mind to the possibility that our perceptions may be misinterpreted. We have relied on the ego to be our interpreter, but we are being taught that the ego understands nothing. It cannot even think real thoughts.

Our real thoughts are the Thoughts we share with God. They are Thoughts of Love and extending Love. These Thoughts dwell in the present moment, for Love is timeless. It is neither past nor future. It is changeless, now and forever.

Today we remind ourselves that the thoughts we are aware of are based on the past. We call upon the Holy Spirit’s help to show us the reality of Love beyond our perceptions in the world. With His help, we become Teachers of Love as we awaken to our true Self at Home in the present moment of eternal Love.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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