Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Why the Atonement Undoes Guilt

Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to one of God’s creations.

Decision cannot be difficult. This is obvious, if you realize that you must already have decided not to be wholly joyous if that is how you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you actively decided wrongly, but can as actively decide otherwise. Be very firm with yourself in this, and keep yourself fully aware that the undoing process [Atonement], which does not come from you, is nevertheless within you because God placed it there. Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me. (A Course in Miracles, T-5.VII.5:1;6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Our guilt seems to be justified because we are convinced that we did something that caused harm. Only in the illusion of the world of separation does this appear to be true. Yet illusions are not real and are therefore not true. This is the key to our release from guilt.

Because only Love is real, harm is impossible. Love is one and cannot hurt Itself. Nothing but Love exists. When we make the decision to choose God’s plan for our Atonement, we are choosing the oneness of Love instead of the separation of the ego. We are choosing Reality instead of illusion.

The decision for God, for Love’s oneness, undoes the justification for guilt because it unites us with Love’s oneness. We only have to be willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s help to correct our mind. This willingness allows the Holy Spirit to shine away the mistaken perception of harm, which undoes the guilt. It returns us to the joy of joining with the eternal extension of Love. The decision for God is the decision to be Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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An Alternative Way to See the Worl

God goes with me wherever I go.

How can I be alone when God always goes with me? How can I be doubtful and unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in Him? How can I be disturbed by anything when He rests in me in absolute peace? How can I suffer when love and joy sur­round me through Him? Let me not cherish illusions about myself. I am perfect because God goes with me wherever I go.

God is my strength. Vision is His gift.

Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ’s vision is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 59, W-pI.59.1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 59 Insights.)

The Course is teaching us that what the body’s eyes see is only an illusion of seeing. It is really image making that seems to confirm separation is real. This perception is essential to the maintenance of the ego’s belief it is separate from God. It denies Love’s oneness.

But there is an alternative way to see the world. Christ’s vision sees past the ego’s images to the Presence of Love that is everywhere, around us and in us. We don’t need to deny that the body’s eyes see images. We just need to remember that those images are unreal and choose instead the vision of Christ that shows us the reality of Love.

Love is always with us because God goes with us wherever we go. His vision is available to us in every instant. As we give Christ’s vision priority, the world becomes a place of healing. Fear subsides and Love is recognized more and more. Guilt fades as we remember we are one in God’s Love.

Today we remind ourselves frequently that Love goes with us everywhere. And we choose to see all things with Love’s vision.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Our Resolution to Follow Holy Spirit’s Lead

The Holy Spirit needs my voice today, that all the world may listen to Your Voice, and hear Your Word through me. I am resolved to let You speak through me, for I would use no words but Yours, and have no thoughts which are apart from Yours, for only Yours are true. I would be savior to the world I made. For having damned it I would set it free, that I may find escape, and hear the Word Your holy Voice will speak to me today.

We teach today what we would learn, and that alone. And so our learning goal becomes an unconflicted one, and possible of easy reach and quick accomplishment. How gladly does the Holy Spirit come to rescue us from hell, when we allow His teaching to persuade the world, through us, to seek and find the easy path to God. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 296, W-pI.296. See also ACIM Lesson 296 Insights.)

We made the world we see by our choice to accept the ego thought system of separation. Based on the fantasy that separation could be real, this world is made up entirely of illusions. It could never be made real because it is based on belief in the impossible.

The way to release this world from the hell of belief that separation is real is to let the Holy Spirit speak through us. When we give priority to the Holy Spirit’s voice, we are choosing truth in place of illusions. His voice will speak to us and all our brothers in forms that teach us the truth beyond the ego’s false images.

The prayer in this lesson is a dedication to choose truth over illusion, the Thoughts we share with God over the fantasies of the ego. By this dedication we teach what we want and need to learn. We move forward on our journey of awakening to Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting Our Limitlessness in God

When you have learned to accept what you are, you will make no more gifts to offer to yourself, for you will know you are complete, in need of nothing, and unable to accept anything for yourself [alone]. But you will gladly give, having received. The host of God need not seek to find anything.

If you are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God and unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace yourself, salvation will be given you. Yet think not you can substitute your plan for His. Rather, join with me in His, that we may release all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host to Him. Thus will we let no one forget what you would remember. And thus will you remember it.

Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him. For where you would have your brother be, there will you think you are. Hear not his appeal to hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me. (A Course in Miracles, T-15.III.10:7-12:4. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

What God creates can have no limits because God extends His limitlessness. This means we, as God’s Son, are equally limitless. Being an extension of God, we extend that limitlessness. This is our Reality as God’s Creation.

The ego is unwilling to accept this Reality because it is the wish to not share, but to keep something it can call its own. Only in illusions does it seem possible for individuality, separate things, to exist. When we believe we are a body, we perceive our brothers as bodies. We limit ourselves to an individual identity by this belief in littleness. This is the ego’s choice — to substitute the limitations of the ego for the limitlessness of God’s Love. Since the ego denies Love, all of Its illusions reflect the ego’s hate for Love. This is why the ego’s world is filled with fear and guilt.

We only need to join with the Holy Spirit Who knows God’s Will for us is to join Him in His Love, peace and happiness.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Power of Our Mind to Love

There is another way of looking at the world.

Today’s idea is an attempt to recognize that you can shift your perception of the world in both its outer and inner aspects.

…when any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed…, say:

There is another way of looking at this.

Remember to apply today’s idea the instant you are aware of distress.

I could see peace instead of this.

The idea for today begins to describe the conditions that prevail in the other way of seeing. Peace of mind is clearly an inter­nal matter. It must begin with your own thoughts, and then extend outward. It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 33, W-pI.33.1:1;3:2-4;4:1. 34.1:1-4. See also ACIM Lesson 33 Insights.)

The world we perceive is a reflection of our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. The ego wants us to believe that the “outside” world is separate from us and out of our control. Its illusions are quite convincing.

A Course in Miracles is teaching us about the power of our mind. Our mind shares the power and strength of God. It is capable of creating by extending Love as an extension of God’s Love. But the power of the mind can be misdirected when we align our thoughts with the ego, believing we are a separate identity.

This mistaken belief hijacks the power of the mind and uses it to make illusions that stand as a barrier against our awareness of the power of God’s Love to extend without limit. Love’s extension continues whether we are aware of it or not. But our alignment with the ego puts us in a dream world that could never exist in the oneness of Love.

The level of peace in our mind is a key symptom of where our thinking is. Perfect peace is an attribute of Love, our true Self. Anything that disturbs our peace is a sign that we are believing the lies of the ego are true. Whenever a disturbance occurs, we can redirect our thoughts by reminding ourselves that we want to see the situation differently and remember we can see peace instead.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Life We Live in God

There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death, and see the life beyond.

Our Father, bless our eyes today. We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. We live and move in You alone. We are not separate from Your eternal life. There is no death, for death is not Your Will. And we abide where You have placed us, in the life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is one with Yours eternally. Amen. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 163, W-pI.163.8:5-9:8. See also ACIM Lesson 163 Insights.)

We rest in peace when we accept without reservation that God’s Will is our will. It is God’s Will that we share His eternal Life. The Source of all Life cannot make death. A body that appears to live and die is only an image made by the ego as a substitute for our true Identity as the Son of God, changeless and eternal.

When we accept God’s Will as our will, we accept the safety of His changeless Love, the innocence of Love’s harmlessness and the joy of eternally extending Love. This is our natural state. Only in dreams does death seem possible. But what never lived cannot die. It can simply cease to seem to be when we awaken to the truth that we have one Will, one Thought, which we share with God.

We choose to be God’s messenger’s today by using Christ’s vision to see the truth of Love in every brother, united in our one Self. Thus we will remember the life we share with God.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Power of God Is in Us

[Trust] is the foundation on which [teachers’ of God) ability to fulfill their function rests. Perception is the result of learning. In fact, perception is learning, because cause and effect are never separated. The teachers of God have trust in the [real] world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a power that is in [the teachers of God] but not of them. It is this power that keeps all things safe. It is through this power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world.

When this power has once been experienced, it is impossible to trust one’s own petty strength again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given him? And who would place his faith in the shabby offerings of the ego when the gifts of God are laid before him? (A Course in Miracles, M-4.I.1-2)

When we perceive the world as a body, there are myriad reasons to feel unsafe, weak and vulnerable. But this perception comes from believing illusions are real and that we are separate from the only real Source of strength — our Creator. The correction of this misperception comes with accepting our true Self’s vision.

Our true Self does not believe we are separate from our Creator. It remembers we are Love, all that is Real. With the strength and power of God in us, there is nothing to fear. God is invincible and so is our true Self. No harm can come to what God created changeless as Himself.

Trust comes to us as we accept our true Self as our Identity and disown the false identity made by the ego. In truth, we walk with God, sharing all His Love, His strength, His peace and joy. We will remind ourselves often of this today.

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