Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

Tweet

Subscribe

View all articles • Article index

How to Be a Happy Learner

Damnation is your judgment on yourself, and this you will project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free.

How foolish is it to attempt to judge what could be seen instead. It is not necessary to imagine what the world must look like. It must be seen [with Holy Spirit’s vision] before you recognize it for what it is. You can be shown which doors are open, and you can see where safety lies; and which way leads to darkness, which to light. Judgment will always give you false directions, but vision [true perception] shows you where to go. Why should you guess?

There is no need to learn through pain. And gentle lessons are acquired joyously, and are remembered gladly. What gives you happiness you want to learn and not forget. It is not this you would deny. Your question is whether the means by which this course is learned will bring to you the joy it promises. If you believed it would, the learning of it would be no problem. You are not a happy learner yet because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you more than judgment does, and you have learned that both you cannot have. (A Course in Miracles, T-21.in.2:1-4. I.2-3. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

The ego does not trust the Will of God, because it believes God’s Will demands sacrifice. But this is the ego’s projection of its own demand for sacrifice. The ego cannot conceive of giving all without limit because it is the choice to believe in limitation. While we identify with the ego, we will not trust the vision offered us by the Holy Spirit in our mind.

It is this lack of trust that makes the message of the Course difficult to accept. It seems that accepting the happiness that is God’s Will for us would require sacrifice of our identity — the ultimate loss, perceived as death. Yet accepting God’s Will for us is the restoration of our true Identity and the end of the false identity made by the ego.

The Holy Spirit is our Friend, though the ego perceives It as enemy. If we want to be truly happy, at peace and complete in the Love of God, we need only accept the Self God created one with Him. The practice of bringing all our perceptions to the Holy Spirit, with willingness to accept His vision, will lead us to remember we are forever at Home in God’s joy.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

The Choice That Will Bring a Happy New Year

To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent you will perceive attack cannot be justified. This is in accord with perception’s fundamental law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there. Perception has no other law than this. The rest but stems from this, to hold it up and offer it support. This is perception’s form, adapted to this world, of God’s more basic law; that love creates itself, and nothing but itself.

Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no one has entered it alone. Nor need he stay more than an instant. For he has come with Heaven’s Help within him, ready to lead him out of darkness into light at any time. The time he chooses can be any time, for help is there, awaiting but his choice. And when he chooses to avail himself of what is given him, then will he see each situation that he thought before was means to justify his anger turned to an event which justifies his love. He will hear plainly that the calls to war he heard before are really calls to peace. He will perceive that where he gave attack is but another altar where he can, with equal ease and far more happiness, bestow forgiveness. And he will reinterpret all temptation as just another chance to bring him joy.

Let all your brother’s errors be to you nothing except a chance for you to see the workings of the Helper given you to see the world He made instead of yours. (A Course in Miracles, T-25.III.1;6;7:2. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

Perception is ego’s substitute for God’s law that Love creates Itself. The wish for specialness blinded us to the Light of Love and left us in darkness. Because true vision is impossible in the dark, the ego made perception to fill the darkness with images that gave specialness and separation the appearance of reality. As long as we choose to believe in separation, the world we experience will always have conflict, fear and guilt.

But we have another choice that transforms the world we experience to a means for waking to the changeless Light of Love. When we choose to accept the Holy Spirit’s way of seeing the world, we learn that images have no substance. We learn to see beyond the images to changeless Love by forgiving ourselves for making images that deny Love.

With the Holy Spirit as our Guide to seeing, our day to day experiences become opportunities to let go of false perception (forgive) and see that only Love is real. Instead of seeing conflict we see calls for Love and the Love that we are answers the call. The world is seen as a place of joy because it is a place of extending and joining in Love. Let this be our chosen purpose for this new year.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

The Journey of the Holy Relationship

The holy relationship is the expression of the holy instant in living in this world. Like everything about salvation, the holy instant is a practical device, witnessed to by its results. The holy instant never fails. The experience of it is always felt. Yet without expression it is not remembered.

The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned. It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew. The holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. In all its aspects, as it begins, develops and becomes accomplished, it represents the reversal of the unholy relationship. Be comforted in this; the only difficult phase is the beginning. For here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was. This is the first result of offering the relationship to the Holy Spirit, to use for His purposes.

Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice. You have joined with many in the holy instant, and they have joined with you. Think not your choice will leave you comfortless, for God Himself has blessed your holy relationship. Join in His blessing, and withhold not yours upon it. For all it needs now is your blessing [appreciation], that you may see that in it rests salvation. Condemn salvation not, for it has come to you. And welcome [salvation] together, for it has come to join you and your brother together in a relationship in which all the Sonship is together blessed. (A Course in Miracles, T-17.V.1:1-5;2;10. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to teach us that our true Self is God’s Son. This Self is shared with every brother. The holy instant is the experience of oneness. It is the instant of awareness that only Love’s unity is real. Typically, the feeling of this experience is beyond words to describe, for its seems beyond this world. In the world we experience through the body, it is difficult to maintain awareness of the holy instant.

The holy relationship is the means the Holy Spirit uses to teach us that we remain united in God’s Love. That is His goal for the relationship. The holy relationship is a laboratory to practice applying the Holy Spirit’s interpretation to our experiences in the relationship. Through the daily practice of accepting Holy Spirit’s perception in place of our own, we progressively learn that perceived differences do not really exist.

As we let go of the perception of differences, the conflicts experienced in the unholy relationship fade away. More and more we find that we share a common Spirit of Love. We appreciate the Love in our brother and join with him instead of trying to maintain separate goals. This is the journey of the holy relationship. At the journey’s end, we see and know that only Love is real. Nothing else matters. We join with our brothers as God’s one Son in the Heaven of His Love.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Awakening to Our True Self

Hear, holy Son of God, your Father speak. His Voice would give to you His holy Word, to spread across the world the tidings of salvation and the holy time of peace. We gather at the throne of God today, the quiet place within the mind where He abides forever, in the holiness that He created and will never leave.

He has not waited until you return your mind to Him to give His Word to you. He has not hid Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him. He does not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. He knows His Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams; regardless of his madness that his will is not his own.

[God] speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than your hand. His Love is everything you are and that He is; the same as you, and you the same as He.

It is your voice to which you listen as He speaks to you. It is your word He speaks. It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 125, W-pI.125.4-5;7:2-8:4. See also ACIM Lesson 125 Insights.)

When we listen to God’s Voice, we are listening to the voice of our true Self. Our Self, God’s Son, is one and the same as God. We share all of God’s attributes. Our Self is Love and nothing else because our Self remains one with our Creator. To see the world truly, we must use the vision of our Self, which does not use the body’s eyes. This is how we see the forgiven world, the real world, because only Love is real. Forgiveness removes the barriers to the awareness of Love’s presence.

We commit to keeping our mind open to the voice of our true Self that we may bring messages of Love to the world. This is how we bring peace to a world of seeming conflict. This is how we bring the healing balm of Love to a world of seeming pain and fear. This is how we awaken to our true Self.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Learning to See the Real World of Love

What I see now are but signs of disease, disaster and death. This cannot be what God created for His beloved Son. The very fact that I see such things is proof that I do not understand God. Therefore I also do not understand His Son. What I see tells me that I do not know who I am. I am determined to see the witnesses to the truth in me, rather than those which show me an illusion of myself.

To me, the purpose of everything is to prove that my illusions about myself are real. It is for this purpose that I attempt to use everyone and everything. It is for this that I believe the world is for. Therefore I do not recognize its real purpose. The purpose I have given the world has led to a frightening picture of it. Let me open my mind to the world’s real purpose by withdrawing the one I have given it, and learning the truth about it. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 55, W-pI.55.1:2-7;5:2-7. See also ACIM Lesson 55 Insights.)

The ego’s purpose for the world is to make separation seem real. This can only be done with illusions, which need constant “evidence” to keep us convinced that illusions are real. The Holy Spirit gives the world its real purpose — to bring forgiveness to every perception in the world. When this perception is complete, the world will simply cease to seem to exist. Forgiveness is the means to undo all the ego’s illusions that would teach us we are alone, separate, limited and weak.

Today we choose the Holy Spirit’s lessons that teach us only Love is real. His lessons help us remove our self-made barriers that hide the reality of Love. As we accept the Holy Spirit’s way of seeing, we see a world united in Love.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Accepting Love as Our Identity

Here [in the body] does [the ego] hide, and here it can be seen as what it is. Declare your innocence and you are free. The body disappears, because you have no need of it except the need the Holy Spirit sees. For this, the body will appear as useful form for what the mind must do. It thus becomes a vehicle which helps forgiveness be extended to the all-inclusive goal that it must reach, according to God’s plan.

Be free today. And carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body. Be you free, so that the Holy Spirit can make use of your escape from bondage, to set free the many who perceive themselves as bound and helpless and afraid. Let love replace their fears through you. Accept salvation now, and give your mind to Him Who calls to you to make this gift to Him. For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God.

And God Himself extends His Love and happiness each time you say:

I am not a body. I am free.
I hear the Voice that God has given me,
and it is only this my mind obeys. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 199, W-pI.199.4;7;8:6-9A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 199, )

Atonement is reached when forgiveness is complete with no exceptions. This is the purpose of all the lessons our inner Teacher brings to us. The Light the Holy Spirit brings into our mind reveals the perfect innocence in everyone, for nothing has occurred to change God’s Creation.

As we accept the idea that we are not a body, we step back from belief in the ego thought system of separation. We free ourselves from belief in separation which limits us to a separate identity, disconnected from the world.

As we let the Holy Spirit be our Guide in all things, the body becomes an instrument for teaching that only innocence is true. Only Love is real. There is nothing else. Free of identification with the image of a body, we are free to experience the joy of our unity in Love.

Today we remind ourselves that we are free to accept Love as our Identity.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

We Welcome Christ’s Vision

Communication is not limited to the small range of channels the world recognizes. If it were, there would be little point in trying to teach salvation. It would be impossible to do so. The 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. These 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. Who transcends these limits in any way is merely becoming more natural. He 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. Given to the Holy Spirit, and used under His direction, they are valuable teaching aids. To this, the question of how they arise is irrelevant. The only important consideration is how they are used.

The 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-25.2:2-3:4;6:9)

In the oneness of Love there is constant extension of Love. This eternal flow is true communication — communion with the whole of Love. This is our natural state.

The ego denies this constant flow of Love because it is only through this denial that separation seems real. When we accept the ego thought system of separation, we accept its limits on Love and Its expression. As we heal our minds by letting go of belief in separation, our limits on Love’s flow diminish. We become more and more aware of Holy Spirit’s presence and guidance in our minds.

Salvation is the release of all limitation and the return to the remembrance of Who we are. As we lay down the limits of the ego, we experience greater and greater connection with our brothers. The limits the body places on communication are released. We become more and more open to joining at the level of mind. Our unity becomes clearer. The vision of Christ, Which sees only the Truth in every brother, begins to supersede what the body’s eyes show us. Let us welcome Christ’s vision today.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 377 of 848 pages ‹ First  < 375 376 377 378 379 >  Last ›

<< Back to main page of Daily Inspiration.

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.