Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Our Invincible Identity

My body is a wholly neutral thing.

I am a Son of God. ²And can I be another thing as well? ³Did God create the mortal and corruptible? ⁴What use has God’s beloved Son for what must die? ⁵And yet a neutral thing does not see death, for thoughts of fear are not invested there, nor is a mockery of love bestowed upon it. ⁶Its neutrality protects it while it has a use. ⁷And afterwards, without a purpose, it is laid aside. ⁸It is not sick nor old nor hurt. ⁹It is but functionless, unneeded and cast off. ¹⁰Let me not see it more than this today; of service for a while and fit to serve, to keep its usefulness while it can serve, and then to be replaced for greater good.

My body, Father, cannot be Your Son. ²And what is not created cannot be sinful nor sinless; neither good nor bad. ³Let me, then, use this dream to help Your plan that we awaken from all dreams we made. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 294, W-294. See also ACIM Lesson 294 Insights.)

In the world we are so identified with the body as our identity that its difficult to conceive of an existence without a body as real. The thought of separation (ego) made the body as a barrier to prevent our awareness of our Self, the Son of God. We cannot have the specialness separation offers and be awake in the oneness of God’s Love.

The idea of cutting loose from the body as our identity terrifies the ego because it would mean its end. It does not want us to know that it would really mean our awakening to our true Identity which has existed unchanged since before time began. We will remember that we remain as God created us.

The Holy Spirit has a different use for the body. Instead of using it as a barrier against the awareness of Love’s presence, He uses the body as a teaching aid to help us learn where our true Identity lies. Every encounter we perceive with the body is a teaching opportunity for the Holy Spirit to help us see beyond what the body can perceive. Each time we accept His help we take another step on the path to enlightenment, the path to our existence as Love.

The choice to accept the Holy Spirit’s help is the choice to be happy. It is the choice to know of our safety and peace, eternally protected by the power of God. Our true Identity is as invincible as God, for God has shared all of Himself with His Creation. Today we choose the Holy Spirit’s purpose for the body with willingness to accept His help throughout the day.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Steps to Awaken to Love

You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. ²Is it your decision to do so [wake up to reality]? ³You recognize from your own experience that what you see in dreams you think is real while you are asleep. ⁴Yet the instant you waken you realize that everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all. ⁵You do not think this strange, even though all the laws of what you awaken to were violated while you slept. ⁶Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really waking?

⁷When you remember [wake up], you will know that what you remember is eternal, and therefore is now.

You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. ²Knowing Them [your Creator and creations] you will have no wish to sleep, but only the desire to waken and be glad. ³Dreams will be impossible because you will want only truth, and being at last your will, it will be yours. (A Course in Miracles, T-10.I.2;3:7–4:3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Dreaming we are in a world of separation is not a happy dream. Even experiences that seem good in the dream carries with it an underlying sense of uncertainty. As the common saying goes, “We are waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Our experience in the world has taught us that nothing here lasts forever. It is helpful to apply this lesson when things seem to be bad — they won’t last forever. But we also apply the same idea when things seem to be good.

This is not what God wills for us. His Will is eternal and singular. He wills all of His Love to His Creation, eternally. God has not changed His Will. He makes no additions to His Will to change it or limit it in any way. He gives all of His Love with all of Its attributes of perfect peace and limitless joy. What God Wills is already given and lasts forever.

We need only accept His Will to have our inheritance. When we are willing to awaken from the dream that denies His Will, we will know that we have everything need. We lack nothing, for what God wills is everything.

The first step to awakening is willingness to consider that we are dreaming. Next we need to call upon the Holy Spirit to help us awaken. That is His function. Our function is to ask for His help and accept it. This is our focus for today.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Willingness to Accept Holy Spirit’s Help

There is no life outside of Heaven. ²Where God created life, there life must be. ³In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. …⁶Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. ⁷Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. ⁸Illusions are but forms. ⁹Their content is never true.

Brother, take not one step in the descent to hell. ²For having taken one, you will not recognize the rest for what they are. ³And they will follow. ⁴Attack in any form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads from Heaven. ⁵Yet any instant it is possible to have all this undone. ⁶How can you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? ⁷Quite easily. ⁸How do you feel? ⁹Is peace in your awareness? ¹⁰Are you certain which way you go? ¹¹And are you sure the goal of Heaven can be reached? ¹²If not, you walk alone. ¹³Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and give you certainty of where you go. (A Course in Miracles, T-23.II.19:1-3,6-9;22. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Every day there seem to be myriad decisions to make and uncertainty is an underlying feeling. The certainty that comes with remembering we are in Heaven now seems a distant hope. This is because we are not using the Source of certainty as our Guide. Certainty increases as we rely on the Holy Spirit to guide our decisions. He knows the way that leads us out of our confusion about what is illusion and what is real.

With our feet caught in the ego’s quicksand of illusions, we need to reach for the Holy Spirit’s hand to pull us out of the quagmire. He is always there for us, a Friend Who can help us with our every need. But we must ask for help because, by asking, we express our willingness to accept His help. The Holy Spirit never imposes guidance, but always offers it. We have to accept it to receive the blessings He offers us 24/7. Today is a great day to practice.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Choice for Happiness

Let me not forget my function.

Today’s idea is merely another way of saying “Let me not wander into temptation.” ²The purpose of the world you see is to obscure your function of forgiveness, and provide you with a justification for forgetting it. ³[The world] is the temptation to abandon God and His Son by taking on a physical appearance. ⁴It is this the body’s eyes look upon.

Nothing the body’s eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body itself. ²Yet we have learned that the Holy Spirit has another use for all the illusions you have made, and therefore He sees another purpose in them. ³To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place where you learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins. ⁴In this perception, the physical appearance of temptation becomes the spiritual recognition of salvation.

³The world’s salvation awaits your forgiveness, because through it does the Son of God escape from all illusions, and thus from all temptation. ⁴The Son of God is you.

…every time you choose whether or not to fulfill your function [forgive], you are really choosing whether or not to be happy. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 64, W-64.1:1–2:4;3:3-4;4:4. See also ACIM Lesson 64 Insights.)

Everyone wants to be happy. But the level of happiness achieved depends upon who is chosen as the guide to happiness. The ego offers illusions that it tempts us to pursue in order to be happy. Yet the achievement of any of the ego’s goals cannot lead to lasting happiness. Illusions are not real and therefore temporary at best. The ego’s goal is always to seek and not find. It knows the true happiness would lead to its dissolution.

Only Love is real and eternal. Forgiving our illusions clears away the ego’s smokescreen of appealing illusions to reveal the presence of eternal Love everywhere. To truly forgive we need to choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide to happiness. If we are willing, He will reinterpret all our perceptions to help us see past the ego’s dark shadows to the Light of Love that surrounds us and is in us. This Light unites us with every brother in the one Self God created as His Son. Here we find happiness beyond words. The choice to follow Holy Spirit is the choice to be happy. Which choice will we make today?

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Leaning on the Holy Spirit

I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.

Father, Your Son is perfect. ²When I think that I am hurt in any way, it is because I have forgotten who I am, and that I am as You created me. ³Your Thoughts can only bring me happiness. ⁴If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where they are. ⁵I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. ⁶The Thoughts I think with You can only bless. ⁷The Thoughts I think with You alone are true.

I will not hurt myself today. ²For I am far beyond all pain. ³My Father placed me safe in Heaven, watching over me. ⁴And I would not attack the Son He loves, for what He loves is also mine to love. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 281. See also ACIM Lesson 281 Insights.)

To believe the ego is our identity is to believe in limitation which could only occur if separation were real. Accepting any form, including the body, as real is a choice against our true Self. Our true Self knows no limitation, for It shares God’s limitlessness. Our true Self knows only the reality of God—His peace, His joy, His changeless Love.

We are hurting ourselves when we believe we are a body in a world defined by forms. These are the limiting, meaningless thoughts that we need to let go. The Holy Spirit calls us to lean on Him as our Guide to release ourselves from our self-imposed limitations. He recognizes our mistaken beliefs and provides a bridge for us to walk across from our world of make believe to the reality of our Home in Heaven’s Love.

Today we choose to lean on Him, for we would have a happy, peaceful and loving day.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Letting the Holy Spirit Resolve Our Problems

This is a year of joy, in which your listening will increase and peace will grow with its increase. ²The power of holiness and the weakness of attack are both being brought into your awareness. …whenever you listened to His interpretation the results have brought you joy. ⁶Would you prefer the results of your interpretation, considering honestly what they have been? ⁷God wills you better. ⁸Could you not look with greater charity on whom God loves with perfect Love?

⁵Today, let us resolve together to accept the joyful tidings that disaster is not real and that reality is not disaster. ⁶Reality is safe and sure, and wholly kind to everyone and everything. ⁷There is no greater love than to accept this and be glad. ⁸For love asks only that you be happy, and will give you everything that makes for happiness.

You have never given any problem to the Holy Spirit He has not solved for you, nor will you ever do so. ²You have never tried to solve anything yourself and been successful. ³Is it not time you brought these facts together and made sense of them? …⁷This year invest in truth, and let it work in peace. ⁸Have faith in Him Who has faith in you. (A Course in Miracles, T-16.II.7:1-2,5-8;8:5–9:3,7-8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

It is tempting to believe that the Holy Spirit does not know how to solve our problems in the world. How could He know how to fix a car, or how to find a lost item? This doubt can cause us to ignore the best way to resolve every problem.

But the Holy Spirit knows what will bring us peace and happiness, not based on the world’s standards. The core problem in our mind that lies beneath every perceived problem in the world is an unwillingness to forgive. It manifests in our world as confusion, uncertainty, fear and guilt. We need to move past this way of thinking.

We need to practice stepping back throughout every day to welcome the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and guidance. His help manifests in many ways in our world experience. If we let Him help us forgive and heal our fear-based thoughts, we may observe a worrisome noise in our car disappear. A thought will come into our mind for the next step leading us to find a missing item followed by another step or two that brings us to it. Our days are increasingly peaceful and happy. There is much less efforting and the natural flow of Love and joy increases. It’s worth the practice.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Path of Return to Love

The Holy Spirit will never teach you that you are sinful. ²Errors He will correct, but this makes no one fearful. ³You are indeed afraid to look within and see the sin you think is there.

What if you looked within and saw no sin? ²This “fearful” question is one the ego never asks. ³And you who ask it now are threatening the ego’s whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother to pretend it is your friend. ⁴Those who have joined their brothers have detached themselves from their belief that their identity lies in the ego. ⁵A holy relationship is one in which you join with what is part of you in truth. ⁶And your belief in sin [separation] has been already shaken, nor are you now entirely unwilling to look within and see it not.

³Your faith is moving inward, past insanity and on to reason. ⁴And what your reason tells you now the ego would not hear. ⁵The Holy Spirit’s purpose was accepted by the part of your mind [right mind] the ego knows not of. ⁶No more did you. ⁷And yet this part, with which you now identify, is not afraid to look upon itself. ⁸It knows no sin. ⁹How, otherwise, could it have been willing to see the Holy Spirit’s purpose as its own?

This part [of your mind] has seen your brother, and recognized him perfectly since time began. ²And it desired nothing but to join with him and to be free again, as once it was. ³It has been waiting for the birth of freedom; the acceptance of release to come to you. (A Course in Miracles, T-21.IV.1:1-3;3;4:3–5:3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

One of the early ideas the Course introduces is that we are not the ego. It defines the ego as simply the idea of separating from Love. It denies Love, which is What we are, at one with the Source of all Love. The ego disowns God and thus our true Self, which remains forever with God.

When we believe we are the ego, we believe in a false self symbolized by the body. This is not our real identity. The body is incapable of joining, being unique and separate from all other bodies. Yet despite the ego’s interference, our true Self remains one with every brother.

When we are able to forgive and look upon a brother without judgment, not separate, we make way for a holy relationship. This is how we learn of our true Self, which sees only itself in every brother. Now we welcome him truly as part of us. Conflict disappears and hope of peace is strengthened.

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