Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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The Lesson That Leads to Heaven’s Gate

How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.

God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself.

This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

I will forgive, and this will disappear.

To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven’s gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him.” (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 193, W-pI.193.7;8:1-2;13. See also ACIM Lesson 193 Insights.)

Here we have a key signal that lets us know there is a lesson to be learned; forgiveness is needed. Any form of pain, anything that disturbs our peace signifies the presence of unforgiveness. Somewhere in our mind we are hanging on to guilt, which at its foundation comes from the belief that we have separated from Love, our Source.

The practice of being vigilant for these signals and then bringing our perceptions to the Holy Spirit for His lesson in forgiveness will lead us Home to the certainty and peace of God’s unconditional, eternal Love. This practice turns everything that disturbs our peace into a gift we can give ourselves. We can exchange pain for peace, despair for happiness, fear for Love. Under the Holy Spirit’s tutelage, we can learn to forgive and let the barriers to Love’s presence disappear. We have the key in our hands. We can use it now.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Becoming Willing to Accept Limitless Love

The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Him for your salvation. But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness. For if He did, you would believe He wrested it from you against your will. And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it. You need not give it to Him wholly willingly, for if you could you had no need of Him. But this He needs; that you prefer He take it than that you keep it for yourself alone, and recognize that what brings loss to no one you would not know. This much is necessary to add to the idea no one can lose for you to gain. And nothing more.

Justice looks on all in the same way. It is not just that one should lack for what another has. For that is vengeance in whatever form it takes. Justice demands no sacrifice…

It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit’s justice with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all. (A Course in Miracles, T-25.VIII.1;4:2-5;5:8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The wish for specialness, to have more of something than others have, denies the unity of Love. It asks that others sacrifice in order for us to have more. It is based on the belief in limitation which contradicts the equality of universal Love.

When we choose the ego as our identity, we sacrifice awareness of the universal Love that is our Being. We treasure forms in the world and believe that to give up these valued forms would be a sacrifice. Were the Holy Spirit to take these treasures from us without our willingness, we would believe the ego is asking us to sacrifice and therefore lose what is important to us.

We defend our “treasures,” even unto death, because we believe these treasures are our identity. But any forms we treasure in the world are empty illusions with no value of their own. To bring healing to our minds, the Holy Spirit must help us recognize that the forms we have valued give us nothing we really want.

When we reach the point that we would prefer to have God’s gift of Love rather than our little, limited treasures, we are open to the Holy Spirit’s loving correction. He needs this willingness in order for us to open to His healing vision. With this open mind, sacrifice and the perception of loss is replaced with accept of our true Will which is to be united with all in God’s Love.

Today we remind ourselves that our perceptions in the world show us only limitation. We are willing to give these perceptions to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to cleanse away the limitations and return to us the awareness of limitless Love, peace and happiness.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Call to Remember the Love We Are

Regard [your brother] gently. Look with loving eyes on him who carries Christ within him, that you may behold his glory and rejoice that Heaven is not separate from you.

Is it too much to ask a little trust for him who carries Christ to you, that you may be forgiven all your sins, and left without a single one you cherish still? Forget not that a shadow held between your brother and yourself obscures the face of Christ and memory of God [Holy Spirit]. And would you trade Them for an ancient hate? The ground whereon you stand is holy ground because of Them Who, standing there with you, have blessed it with Their innocence and peace.

When [the face of Christ and memory of God] come, time’s purpose is fulfilled. What never was passes to nothingness when They have come. What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home. The incomplete is made complete again, and Heaven’s joy has been increased because what is its own has been restored to it. (A Course in Miracles, T-26.IX.1:5-2:4;4:2-5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

When we see our brothers truly, we see them as the innocence of Christ, which reminds us of God, our Source. When we see our brother as a body, separate from ourselves, the truth of him is hidden by an illusion. The illusion will always seem real to us as long as we accept the ego as our guide.

The antidote to the world of fear and guilt is to choose the Guide Who is always ready, willing and able to show us the Christ in our brothers. This healed perception reflects back to us the truth of What we are. The image of ourselves as bodies fades in importance as we accept the Christ in us and all our brothers Who joins us all together in the oneness of God’s Love. The memory of the ego’s “history” is replaced by the eternal presence of Love. We remember God.

The safety and comfort of this Home replaces the conflict, uncertainty, fear and guilt of the illusions offered up by the ego. The call to return Home never ceases, for it is a call of our true Self to awaken to the Home we never truly left.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Holy Spirit’s Motivation for Mind Healing

All who believe in separation have a basic fear of retaliation and abandonment. They believe in attack and rejection, so that is what they perceive and teach and learn. These insane ideas are clearly the result of dissociation and projection. What you teach you are, but it is quite apparent that you can teach wrongly, and can therefore teach yourself wrong. Many thought I was attacking them, even though it was apparent I was not. An insane learner learns strange lessons. What you must recognize is that when you do not share a thought system, you are weakening it. Those who believe in it therefore perceive this as an attack on them. This is because everyone identifies himself with his thought system, and every thought system centers on what you believe you are. If the center of the thought system is true, only truth extends from it. But if a lie is at its center, only deception proceeds from it.

All good teachers realize that only fundamental change will last, but they do not begin at that level. Strengthening motivation for change is their first and foremost goal. It is also their last and final one. Increasing motivation for change in the learner is all that a teacher need do to guarantee change. Change in motivation is a change of mind, and this will inevitably produce fundamental change because the mind is fundamental. (A Course in Miracles, T-6.V.B.1-2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The foundation of the ego thought system is the belief that separation is real. It is the belief that the impossible is possible. Thus the ego is fundamentally insane. Out of its insane belief, the ego thought system has built a world that reflects its insanity. It is the logical outcome of its belief in what is real. Yet founded on a false premise, all its logic leads to false results.

Our only problem is that we have accepted the false foundation of the ego thought system. The Holy Spirit’s mission, then, is to teach us that we do not really want the ego and its false thought system. Our identification with the ego, which we made by our belief, makes us defensive of its foundation. Were we to accept that the foundation of the thought system we have accepted is false, we would lose what we believe is our identity. This is terrifying because we believe it is our death.

As the Teacher of truth, the Holy Spirit must help us see that what we have accepted as true is false. It is not what we really want. This is the first step in motivating us to be open for a change of mind. The next step shows us that the truth offers us what we really want — peace of mind, indescribable joy and eternal Love.

A Course in Miracles is a means the Holy Spirit uses to motivate us to choose Love instead of fear, peace instead of conflict and joy instead of depression. These are God’s gifts to us, eternally ours. We need only undo the fundamental belief in separation for us to claim the gifts that have always been ours.

Today we ask the Holy Spirit to decide all things on our behalf. His decisions will always be for the oneness of Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Finding Our True Identity

Everything the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For although the ego urges you again and again to get, it leaves you nothing, for what you get it will demand of you.”

Therefore ask not of yourself what you need, for you do not know, and your advice to yourself will hurt you. For what you think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world against the light, and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can really hold for you.

Only the Holy Spirit knows what you need. For He will give you all things that do not block the way to light.

Leave, then, your needs to Him.

…remember what you really want, and say:

The Holy Spirit leads me unto Christ, and where else would I go? What need have I but to awake in Him?

Then follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely through all dangers to your peace of mind this world may set before you. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.VIII.11:1-2,5-6;12:1-2;13:1;14:1-15:1. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ultimate goal of A Course in Miracles is to lead us to the peace of mind that is our natural state as the Son of God. It has a two part strategy to achieve this goal. One part is to help us realize that the world we experience has no value. It holds nothing that we truly want, for it can only offer meaningless illusions. By itself, this would not be enough, for it would leave us frightened with no sense if identity.

So the Holy Spirit must also teach us the truth that we really want: We remain the changeless, eternal Love that God created us to be. This is our true Identity. This process leads us to recognize there is no value in the world. But all value is in the Self that God created one with Him. Here we find the safety, certainty and peace of mind that everyone seeks. As we let go of values we have placed in the world, the Light of our true Self shines forth and we remember Who we are. We rest in the peace and Love of God.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Exchanging Misery for Joy and Peace

Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind.

Here is the answer! Do not turn away in aimless wandering again. Accept salvation now. It is the gift of God, and not the world. The world can give no gifts of any value to a mind that has received what God has given as its own. God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you.

Open your eyes today and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace. Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers it to you.

Remind yourself how precious are these gifts with this reminder, which has power to hold your gifts in your awareness through the day:

Forgiveness offers everything I want.
Today I have accepted this as true.
Today I have received the gifts of God. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 122, W-pI.122.3:1-2;7-8;14:2-5. See also ACIM Lesson 122 Insights.)

Forgiveness seems difficult in the world. Some things are even perceived as unforgivable. But we pay a steep price for our unforgiveness. Unforgiveness brings with it pain, sadness, fear, guilt, resentment, all effects of unforgiveness.

We are free to choose another option. We can exchange the “benefits” of unforgiveness for the benefits of true forgiveness — joy, peace of mind and changeless Love. We are so embedded in the world that we cannot make this choice without help. We think we need to hold others responsible for our misery.

Without this projected blame, we recognize that our thoughts are the cause of our misery. Without a way out of this responsibility, it seems intolerable. But we have been given the means to find the peace and happiness that will replace our misery through Holy Spirit’s help to truly forgive.

Today, with every thought that disturbs our peace and happiness, we ask the Holy Spirit to teach us how to heal our mind and see past the disturbing perception. He will cleanse our beliefs which justify unforgiveness so that we can see the reality of Love’s presence always.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Let Holy Spirit Lead Us to Truth

The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom His mission can be happily accomplished.

To those unhappy learners who would teach themselves nothing, and delude themselves into believing that it is not nothing, the Holy Spirit says, with steadfast quietness:

The truth is true. Nothing else matters, nothing else is real, and everything beside it is not there. Let Me make the one distinction for you that you cannot make, but need to learn. Your faith in nothing is deceiving you. Offer your faith to Me, and I will place it gently in the holy place where [your faith] belongs. You will find no deception there, but only the simple truth. And you will love it because you will understand it.

If you would be a happy learner, you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you. And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true.

All this lies in the Holy Spirit’s plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom for you. For truth is true. What else could ever be, or ever was? This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door that you believe is locked forever. You made this door of nothing, and behind it is nothing. The key is only the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. Accept this key to freedom from the hands of Christ Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light. (A Course in Miracles, T-14.II.1:1;3:2-9;6:1-2;7:2-8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

While we believe the world is real, we cannot distinguish truth from illusion because the world is a dream that denies truth. This denial blocks truth from our mind and seems to lock us into a world of fear, guilt and lack of Love. Were it not for God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to teach us how to distinguish truth from illusion, we would be locked into this dark world.

The way Home to the Light of Love is in our mind. We need only turn over all our beliefs to the Holy Spirit for His gentle correction. He will purify our beliefs, retaining only what is in alignment with God’s Love. The rest He dismisses for the nothingness it is.

Holy Spirit, guide our thoughts today. Heal our fearful beliefs and teach us to see the Love that is everywhere to be seen.

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