Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Seeing Love’s Reflection in the World

My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability. How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance.

Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go.

The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.

God is still everywhere and in everything forever. And we who are part of Him will yet look past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them all.

In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 56,W-pI.56.1:1-5;2:2-4;3:2-4;4:5-6;5:2. See also ACIM Lesson 56 Insights.)

Identifying with an image of a body as what we are is a self-imposed limitation. It leaves us feeling alone and separate and without Love, for Love cannot be limited. Believing we are without Love, we search constantly to find what we feel is missing. But it cannot be found in the world we see. We need to open our minds to a different way of seeing that does not use the body’s perceptions.

The Holy Spirit in our mind will help us see with the vision of our true Self. This vision shows us the Love we are and the Love that is everywhere, without limit. This is our Reality. To know this reality, we must let go of identifying with a separate self-image. Our true Self is united with all Love everywhere. The will of our true Self is join with this Love and extend It always. This world is seen behind the images we have made.

We can practice remembering this as we meet or think of anyone by mentally saying to ourselves, “Beyond this appearance is the Light of Love. Let me see this Light as my Reality and know that I am Love.”

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Path to Perfect Happiness

God’s Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go against His Will? The part that He has saved for you to take in working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills [perfect happiness]. This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness. Your joy must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.

…realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God’s messengers. Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God’s plan, and never lose or sacrifice or die.

Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you.

He will be there. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 100,W-pI.100.2;7:3-7;8:5-9:1. See also ACIM Lesson 100 Insights.)

Happiness is our natural state. We were created to be happy as an extension of God’s joy. If we experience sadness or depression, we are believing in a false image of our identity, separate from God. God’s plan for our salvation is to guide us to letting go of this false image that hides the truth of our perfect happiness.

It seems that we must go deep within to find our true Self, the Christ, God’s Son. But that is only because we have made up and believe in layers of images that make the veil of illusion seem impenetrable or at least thick and hard to get past. And so God’s plan works kindly and persistently to peel away the false images through forgiveness. With the Holy Spirit’s help we learn to recognize the unreality of the images we have taught ourselves to believe are real.

The more we practice welcoming the Holy Spirit’s interpretation in place of our judgments, the happier we become. Forgiveness is the key to happiness. This is our function in God’s plan for our salvation, our release to perfect happiness.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Release from Guilt

The body’s eyes see only form. They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. And they were made to look on error and not see past it.

These eyes, made not to see, will never see. For the idea they represent left not its maker [ego], and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker’s goal but not to see? For this the body’s eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. See how the body’s eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. Nothing [is] so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form means understanding has been obscured.

Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins and of his body. …You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him to save yourself. And yet, his holiness is your forgiveness. Can you be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness is your salvation?

…reason sees a holy relationship as what it is; a common state of mind, where both give errors gladly to correction, that both may happily be healed as one. (A Course in Miracles, T-22.III.5:3-5;6;7:3,6-8;9:7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Only what is true has meaning. When we understand meaning, we are accepting Reality as It is. The ego is the denial of Reality and made the body with eyes that cannot see reality. It is impossible that the body’s eyes see anything that is true, having been made to see only illusion. This fact is the key to release from sin and guilt. Because everything the body’s eyes see is illusion, everything it sees is untrue. This means all our perceptions with the body’s eyes, which we interpret based on our past learning, are mistaken.

We need to choose a different Interpreter. The Holy Spirit is not blinded by the appearance of forms. He sees past them to the true meaning that lies beyond them all. He sees Love’s innocence everywhere. As we choose His interpretation in place of our own, we are accepting the Holy Spirit’s gift of our salvation. We are learning that sin is not true and could never be true. Therefore guilt is never justified.

The Holy Spirit’s function is to show us that we remain as God created us — whole, complete and sinless, shining in the Light of God’s Love. Today we choose the Holy Spirit’s interpretation in place of our own.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting the Reality of Present Love

If all but loving thoughts have been forgotten, what remains is eternal. And the transformed past is made like the present.

For the present is forgiveness.

It is still up to you to choose to join with truth or with illusion. But remember that to choose one is to let the other go. Which one you choose you will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice depends on which you value more. The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery—it is all the same. For you can never choose except between God and the ego. Thought systems are but true or false, and all their attributes come simply from what they are. Only the Thoughts of God [Love] are true. And all that follows from them comes from what they are, and is as true as is the holy Source from which they came. (A Course in Miracles, T-17.III.5:3-4;8:2;9. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The test of truth is perfect peace. If we experience anything but perfect peace, we have chosen illusion in place of truth. We always have instant feedback that tells us what we have chosen. In every instant we have the option to choose differently. Whether we experience a seemingly minor disturbance or a sense of terror, we still have a choice.

Ever present in our mind, the Holy Spirit is ready and willing to help us make the choice for truth. We need only be willing to offer the perception that is “threatening us” to Him, with willingness to receive His kind correction. He will strengthen our willingness with His. As we are receptive to His correction, He will show us the truth of What we are in place of the guilty shadows of the past that we have identified with. He will show us the changeless Love we are. He will show us that we remain united with our Creator, sharing His invulnerability and Love. He will show us the Reality of now.

Each time we practice this, the seeming reality of the illusions we have perceived will fade and the Reality of changeless Love will become more clear, for we are letting go of the past and accepting the eternal present.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Beyond Illusions Is Only Love

What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions that remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because, without belief, they have no life. And so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.

Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed. Today belongs to truth. Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams be gone. Let truth correct them all.

We do not ask for what we do not have. We merely ask for what belongs to us, that we may recognize it as our own. Today we practice on the happy note of certainty that has been born of truth.

Begin by asking Him Who goes with you upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him. …It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could He be absent where you are? (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 107,W-pI.107.1;6:1-7:3;8:1,4. See also ACIM Lesson 107 Insights.)

The world we perceive is a reflection of our belief. Belief makes illusions seem real, just as we react to images in a dream as if they were real. If the image is frightening, our heart begins to race as we begin to attempt to defend against what frightens us. Yet when we wake up from the dream, we realize that what frightened us in the dream was not real.

As we walk with our true Self, the Holy Spirit, we walk with the Light of Truth by our side. The Light of Truth shines away the false images, for they disappear as we recognize they are illusions.

The practice of remembering that Truth walks beside us in every moment helps us keep our mind open to seeing past the illusions. We overlook illusions because we recognize them for what they are. Beyond illusions is Love and nothing else. Without illusions we remember we are Love and nothing else. We remember the strength of Love’s changelessness and know there is nothing to fear.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Accepting No Substitutes for God’s Love

Let me remember love is happiness, and nothing else
brings joy. And so I choose to entertain no substitutes
for love.

Love is my heritage, and with it joy. These are the
gifts my Father gave to me. I would accept all that is
mine in truth.

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 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. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 117,W-pI.117,118)

The ego is the idea that it is possible to make an alternative reality in place of the Reality of God’s Love. But the most it can do is make up empty images that have no meaning nor value of their own. Then it makes up stories to give these images some kind of value and meaning that we think we want. It is a grand deception that leaves us feeling dissatisfied and needing to keep searching to find meaning. But under the ego’s guidance we always search in illusions where meaning and value cannot be found.

The Holy Spirit in our minds will guide us to seek where value and meaning can be found — in the truth of God’s changeless Love. We accept His gifts of happiness and peace by letting go of giving meaning to the illusions of the ego world. This is forgiveness.

Today we choose to accept God’s gifts of Love, peace and joy by letting the Holy Spirit help us recognize the emptiness of the ego’s substitutes.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Key to Release from Hell

I am the holy Son of God Himself.

Here is your declaration of release from bondage of the world. And here as well is all the world released. You do not see what you have done by giving to the world the role of jailer to the Son of God.

Yet what is it except a game you play in which Identity can be denied? You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everyone set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything, the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.

Be glad today how very easily is hell undone. You need but tell yourself:

I am the holy Son of God Himself. I cannot suffer,
cannot be in pain; I cannot suffer loss, nor fail to do
all that salvation asks.

And in that thought is everything you look on wholly changed.

You are the holy Son of God Himself. Remember this, and all the world is free. Remember this, and earth and Heaven are one. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 191,W-pI.191.1:1-3;4;7;11:6-8. See also ACIM Lesson 191 Insights.)

The ego is dedicated to littleness, being the denial of our oneness with the magnitude of God. The only way to make this dedication seem real is to imprison our mind in a belief system of vulnerability, weakness and death. It is only our belief in it that gives it seeming reality.

This is why affirming that we are the Son of God Himself is the key to breaking free from the false belief in littleness and separation from God. What we believe, our state of mind, is reflected in all we perceive. Change what we believe and what is reflected back to us changes.

We have the key in our hand right now to free ourselves from hell and accept that we remain as God created us. We are His Son eternally. As we set ourselves free, the world we see is set free.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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