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Study of the Text 5-10-13

5-10-13
10 As long as perception lasts prayer has a place. Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and given themselves over to truth. Perception is based on a separated state, so that anyone who perceives at all needs healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. God and His miracle are inseparable. How beautiful indeed are the Thoughts of God who live in His Light! Your worth is beyond perception because it is beyond doubt. Do not perceive yourself in different lights. Know yourself in the One Light where the miracle that is you is perfectly clear.

I think I am separated from God and so I think I lack. I will continue to feel a sense of lack no matter how I fill my life with things, friends, lovers, money, accomplishments, or beauty. Nothing will relieve the emptiness because it is the inevitable result of the perception of separation. I was whole and now I perceive myself as less than that and so I naturally seek a remedy. The only remedy is a return to Wholeness.

I perceive myself as fractured and so now need healing. As long as I continue to perceive rather than to know, this will be true. The only healing that will bring me back to my natural state is forgiveness. Forgiveness will allow the Holy Spirit to heal my mind and to undo what I have done through my decision to perceive separation.

So now I am learning to pray differently. I don’t pray to be a better person, to have more money, for help to meet an obligation, or to meet someone who will relieve my sense of loneliness. I don’t pray for a healthier body or a longer life, or that my friends and loved ones will not leave me. The only meaningful prayer is forgiveness, which is the only remedy for what ails me. Forgiveness accepts the healing of the mind that believes it needs any of these things.

Only through separation perception could I imagine that I could be alone, afraid, sad, angry or in need of anything at all. I am whole and perfect, beautiful beyond anything the body’s eyes could see. I am what I seek. I am a miracle of God. I am His beloved Son. What could I pray for if I were in my right mind? While I am in this confused state where I perceive rather than know, the only prayer I am interested in is the prayer for forgiveness.

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Study of the Text 5-9-13

5-9-13
9 Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate. Spirit knows God completely. That is its miraculous power. The fact that each one has this power completely is a condition entirely alien to the world’s thinking. The world believes that if anyone has everything, there is nothing left. But God’s miracles are as total as His Thoughts because they are His Thoughts.

I need to underline this first sentence and commit it to memory. “Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation.” I have said before myself, and have heard many people say, “I don’t really understand forgiveness.” That is why when I hear the word forgiveness, I automatically translate it to “undo.” I chose the perception of separation, and now I need to undo this choice or to choose again. Thus, I forgive my perception of what is happening to me, or what someone is doing.

In order to undo the perception of separation, I must forgive it everywhere I see it. I cannot pick and choose the perceptions I want to undo and those I want to keep. If I keep any perception of separation, I have not forgiven the perception of separation. Because we see each perception as if it is something different from another perception, there is the temptation to believe that one is more meaningful and thus more valuable than another. But if it is a perception of separation it has no meaning and therefore no value.

Guilt is a separation perception. We are all innocent and this has no exceptions, but it can be hard to believe this sometimes. If someone breaks my heart, or steals something I treasure, or hurts someone I love, the temptation is to believe that person is guilty. If I don’t forgive that perception, then I have kept the whole separation perception in place.

Suffering is a separation perception. Many times I have felt like my suffering was justified. When my son was very sick, I suffered. Yesterday when I felt guilty for something I did to my mother, I suffered. When I have been sick or in pain, I have suffered. When I am suffering and I tell myself that I am a victim to the circumstances and there is nothing I can do about it, I am keeping the whole separation perception in place.

Separation perception seems to take many forms. It might appear as fear, anger, jealousy, depression, shame, grief, or envy, suffering, pain or death. It might appear as a behavior such as an addiction. It might appear as distracting behaviors like eating, shopping, reading, watching TV, when these things are done in order to avoid the work of forgiveness.

No matter the form they take, or how different they seem, our separation perceptions are really all the same. This is hard to hear and even harder to believe, but the death of a loved one is no different than the fear of losing a job. It is part of our separation strategy to put everything into categories and give them levels of “truth” and levels of importance. But just as zero times one equals zero and zero times a million also equals zero, separation perceptions are meaningless no matter what importance we give them.

Spirit knows God completely and Spirit is in our minds, so each of us has this power in exactly the same way and to the same degree. No one is holier than another and no one is condemned or less than another. The world doesn’t understand this because the world is based on separation perception.

There are the obvious examples of this as you listen to people talk about the Boston bombers, or politicians they really despise, or even whole groups of people they hate. But terrorists and murders and rapists, and even the politicians people love to hate, all have the same power of knowledge in their minds. The Spirit is in them as He is in all of us, so how can they be separate? If I see them as separate or different, if I see them as outside Love, then I am holding the separation perception in place.

How about the ones I see as holier than me, further advanced than me, more special than me? I know that some people are more advanced in time, but that is just temporary and not a real difference. But if I place anyone, even Jesus, above myself and make him special, then I am keeping the separation perception in place.

Who we really are, not the story of our bodies, which is just another separation perception, but our true Self, is exactly the same and is One. There is not one of us that is better or higher placed or more beloved or holier than another. We are each a miracle of God in exactly the same way. Give devotion where devotion is due, but reserve awe only for God.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 5-8-13

5-8-13
8 What happens to perceptions if there are no judgments and nothing but perfect equality? Perception becomes impossible. Truth can only be known. All of it is equally true, and knowing any part of it is to know all of it. Only perception involves partial awareness. Knowledge transcends the laws governing perception, because partial knowledge is impossible. It is all one and has no separate parts. You who are really one with it need but know yourself and your knowledge is complete. To know God’s miracle is to know Him.

Jesus, I really don’t know what to do with this paragraph. I don’t doubt the truth of it; I just don’t remember how that feels. What I hear you say is that I am a miracle of God. When I know myself as a miracle of God I will know everything because knowledge is whole. Perception will disappear along with judgment. What would there be to judge? There would be only truth. Oh, I do so long for that knowledge, complete and uninterrupted.

As I write this, part of my mind is on an experience of yesterday. About three years ago my mom died of Alzheimer’s. I spent several months forgiving our relationship, and mostly that was me forgiving myself for not loving her as well as I could have. It felt like grief and at first that is what I thought it was, but actually, if it was grief, it was grief that I had not been a better daughter.

During those months a memory would surface and I would feel this overwhelming guilt over my behavior and would then go through the process of forgiveness. Finally, the memories stopped coming and I felt like it was complete. I thought of mom and there was not guilt, only love. Then yesterday, a different memory surfaced and it really knocked me off my feet. It was not just the feeling of guilt the memory triggered, but that it was so unexpected. Like walking along and suddenly something hits you from behind and knocks you down.

Me: Jesus, the shame and guilt I felt yesterday and this morning are receding, but it is still there. It is hard to think of myself as a miracle of God when I think of myself as a guilty, shameful person.

Jesus: Here is what you can do. Allow the feelings to flow over you. Your resistance to them is all that makes them painful. Your resistance is your fear that the feelings are true and that, as you suspected, you really are guilty. The circumstances that seemed to be the source of your feelings are unimportant. You feel guilty and the story of your mom seems to be the reason for your guilt, but it is not. As long as you believe in guilt, you will continue to experience these guilty stories. The stories are not the cause of the guilt; they are the effect of the guilt. You are innocent. You are, indeed, a miracle of God.

Me: I had the thought that there was no guilt and that there is only innocence. I imagined myself saying to a friend that she could not be guilty because she is innocent and that she could never be guilty. In that moment I felt the truth of that so strongly it was hard for me to imagine how she could feel guilty. Then, a short time later, this memory surfaced and I felt so overwhelmed with guilt that I could not imagine innocence. The story of my guilt was a hammer pounding me into the ground.

Jesus: Do not be concerned that you have these feelings of guilt. You have the truth in your mind. You also have the separation thought in your mind. The story of your guilt is just a symbol of the separation thought. You have done nothing. All that is happening is that you are looking at both thoughts in your mind.

First you looked at the truth. This caused a fearful reaction in the part of your mind that feels separate from God and feels guilty for that separation. The guilt that felt so drowning was actually the reaction to that fear. Truly, the belief in guilt is your defense against the love of God. It is your defense against the idea that you are a miracle of God.

Imagine you are standing on the beach and a tall wave is coming at you. If you become fearful and stand against the wave, it will knock you over and you will feel like you are drowning. If you sit quietly and let the wave flow over and around you as if you were a rock in its path, it will rush over you and then quickly recede.

Be the rock. Let the rush of feelings, the doubts and the fears flow over you. They cannot hurt you. You are safe. Without the fear you will hear even the wave whisper the truth about you. You are innocent. Nothing can touch your innocence. You are innocent because guilt is a lie. It doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as guilt.

This is the meaning behind this paragraph, Myron. As you are waking up you are remembering who you are. With that return to truth, perception will fall away. If there is only innocence, where is guilt? In God there cannot be opposites. It is only in the idea of separation that there is a belief in opposites or more than one and with this belief perception was chosen over certainty. Stand like a rock in the face of your fears. Let the Voice of Truth undo this error in your mind. Don’t struggle against it, and it will pass quickly and painlessly. You are not alone. We stand with you.

Me: Thank you for that reminder, Jesus, and thank you for the helpful visual. Instead of see the wave crashing down on me, I will see it washing away the doubts and uncertainties. I will see you standing with me. I notice that the residual sadness is completely gone now. I see that it was only my clinging to the idea of guilt and shame that made it seem real in the first place, and that made it linger for so long.

One thing I am reminded of is how it feels when I am not certain. So when someone else is in fear, I can be certain for them, but I will remember how it feels to be afraid and will feel compassion as well.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 5-7-13

5-7-13
7 The statement “God created man in his own image and likeness” needs reinterpretation. “Image” can be understood as “thought,” and ‘likeness” as “of a like quality.” God did create spirit in His Own Thought and of a quality like to His Own. There is nothing else. Perception, on the other hand, is impossible without a belief in “more” and “less.” At every level it involves selectivity. Perception is a continual process of accepting and rejecting, organising and reorganising, shifting and changing. Evaluation is an essential part of perception, because judgments are necessary in order to select.

I remember the first time I read this I was very happy to have confirmed the belief I held that God is not a body, and “created in His own image” did not refer to our bodies. I also remember what a leap it was to go from the idea of God as like me (the body of Myron) to the thought that I must be like God, whatever that looks like. Even after I let go of the idea of God as body, I was resistant to the idea of letting go of God as separatist. I kept expecting God to be as judgmental as I am. I suppose that even though I am letting go of that idea, there must be some unconscious belief of God as Judge because I am still here hiding out in ego land, afraid to go Home.

God created me like Himself and creation continues in that way. God is a creator and therefore so am I. I continue to create as, and in the same manner, as God creates. This dream of separation does not qualify as creation because it is not as God creates. It is not an extension of God, and not an extension of my Self. Separation is not real, but is only a consideration of an impossible idea, because, as Jesus says, there is nothing else (but God). If Heaven has an opposite, surely the idea of separation is it, so I know it cannot be part of God.

“Perception is a continual process of accepting and rejecting, organising and reorganising, shifting and changing.” I can vaguely remember that when I first began to understand perception, I felt very resistant to letting this process go. I didn’t want to stop evaluating and judging, and I really loved the process of organizing and reaorganizing, accepting and rejecting. I valued my right to make choices. Now, just thinking about this makes me tired. I want to let this go. In time, however, perception is necessary. What I can do is allow my mind to be healed and my perceptions to be brought into alignment with the truth.

What I must remember in order for this to happen is that I must be vigilant for those times I still value the right to judge so that I can choose again. Also I must remember that I cannot make this change myself. I made perception and so I believe in it. It requires something outside of the belief system to make that change for me, and that is why the Holy Spirit is in my mind. He is the One Who does this for me when I am ready for the change. All I need to do is ask.

Now that I am watching for the judgments in my mind, and have begun the process of accepting the Atonement, I am noticing the more subtle ways I do this. Allowing the Holy Spirit to help me see the body as unreal has been a real eye opener for me in a lot of ways. I am really surprised to note that I don’t seem to want to give up the right to be in pain, to suffer, and apparently, to die. He has shown me that time is meaningless, that pain is optional, and that suffering is not necessary. And yet, I return to them over and over. In spite of that, I am not discouraged. Well, sometimes I get discouraged with myself, but overall, I am intrigued and anticipatory.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 5-6-13

5-6-13
6 Prayer is a way of asking for something. It is the medium of miracles. But the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven have everything. Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly meaningless. The prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that you may be able to recognize what you already have. In electing perception instead of knowledge, you placed yourself in a position where you could resemble your Father only by perceiving miraculously. You have lost the knowledge that you yourself are a miracle of God. Creation is your Source and your only real function.

The Song of Prayer begins by telling us that prayer is the greatest gift with which God blessed His Son at his creation. It says about prayer:

It was then what it is to become; the single voice Creator and creation share; the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns the thanks it offers Him, unto the Son.

Prayer, as given by God to His Son is a love song, one to the other, and we are assured it will be so again. But then Jesus goes on to say that for those of us still in time, prayer takes the form that best will suit our need. As he is saying here in this paragraph, our only real need is forgiveness.

Every time I see the word forgiveness my mind automatically translates it to “undo.” I forgive the world I think I see. I forgive my perceptions and my projections. I choose forgiveness and all I have done is undone and I will know what has always been true. I will know myself as my Father’s creation. I will know myself as like my Father. I will, finally, remember that I am a creator rather than a maker.

I am in the absurd position of not knowing who or what I am, and not knowing Who my Creator is because I chose to perceive rather than to know. Now it requires miraculous perception to see the truth. I pray for forgiveness. I pray for a miracle. I pray that my perceptions be healed and brought as close to the truth as is possible in the world of time.

In the story of Myron, this means that I continue to follow the Holy Spirit’s prompts and to forgive whatever is in my awareness. It seems that we must forgive from the bottom up. So I start with the misperception that is in my mind right now. Whatever this misperception might seem to be, it is just a symbol of the only misperception there is. It represents the desire to be separate. But it seems I cannot go straight to the desire to be separate, but must first look with the Holy Spirit at the effects of that desire and make a new decision. I must choose again, and this time, choose knowledge over truth.

Right now it seems that the Holy Spirit is helping me as I look at the perception that I am this body or in this body. He is helping me to see that the body is not real. I didn’t, at first, realize this is what was happening. For instance, I thought the body was in pain and I wanted the pain to stop. But He waited until I asked a real question. My prayer became, “Holy Spirit, what am I supposed to do with this pain?” Then He led me to Workbook Lesson 190 and He helped me, step by step, to forgive the idea that pain could ever be real.

I am still learning this lesson. Or maybe a better way to say this is that I sometimes accept this lesson and sometimes return to my old perception. But I never go all the way back. What I learn, I cannot unlearn, it seems. Then the Holy Spirit surprised me. One night as I was getting read for bed, I reached for my Ambien, which I perceived as a necessary sleep aid. He whispered a question into my heart. He asked me if I would like to learn that I don’t need this magic.

I was intrigued and I assumed that I was ready for this step if He asked this question, so I said yes. This was not as hard as the previous experiment in rediscovering the truth about the body. After the first week or so I haven’t really felt like I needed the Ambien. I have taken it a couple of times but I am certain I didn’t need it even then. The reason I am certain is that I am beginning to remember that the body doesn’t need anything. It is only the mind that believes it needs something and then projects that need onto the body in the form of pain, suffering and finally, death.

A couple of weeks ago I found a new prayer. I noticed that I had gained five pounds and could no longer wear some of my clothes. Well, no need to panic. This is a dance I am very familiar with. I knew what to do and I knew it would be easy to lose the weight. But suddenly I felt very tired of the whole thing. I felt tired of the constant struggle with weight and the way my life seemed to revolve around what I eat.

I was reminded of the way Holy Spirit helped me to see time differently. I used to think I had to be asleep at a certain time so I could get a certain amount of sleep before I got up to write in my journal with Holy Spirit. This felt very important to me because the writing was not optional but I had to get it done before work. This is why I took Ambien. I could not always sleep and then I would panic and think that as a result I would not be able to think to write, or I would oversleep and then would be late for work while I took the time for God.

There were other ways that time would be an issue. It was like time was a tyrant and I was enslaved to it. One morning I was feeling the flow from Spirit and my writing was taking longer than usual. I felt the familiar worry about time. I really didn’t want to stop the flow, but I had an appointment I could not miss. I felt, rather than said, a prayer that if put into words would be, “Holy Spirit, what can I do about this?”

Then I remembered what Jesus said in the Course about time. He said that he could manipulate time, and so I asked him to. And he did! I put my faith in his words and I continued to write until I was through. I resisted the ego nudging to look at the clock. I just kept writing until the flow stopped. Then I got dressed and left. Only then did I look at the clock and I was right on time. I often now taken Jesus up on his offer to manipulate time and it always works.

So this is what I thought about. I am no longer a slave to time and it feels so good. Now I wondered if I could forgive the idea that I am slave to food. Could food simply become for me something that fuels the body in this dream of bodies? Could I allow my perceptions of food be changed to something closer to truth? This is what the Holy Spirit is working with me on right now.

What I am learning from each of these lessons is that the body is not real. The body does not get sleepy and it does not resist sleep. This happens in the mind, which then projects it onto the body. The body does not get fat from eating food. The mind gets fat from guilt and fear, and projects it onto the body. There is now a story of a guilty Myron who overeats (or God forbid, eats something that actually tastes good) and suffers the consequences for her sin.

These lessons and my acceptance of the truth about them is the way I pray for forgiveness.  I have misperceived the world and the Holy Spirit is helping me to change that perception. This will, ultimately, lead to knowledge, though this is on another level altogether and comes directly from God. However, I am busy enough with the lessons I am given and am not concerned about how knowledge will come. I will allow the truth to unfold in its time.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 5-313

5-3-13
4 The fundamental question you continually ask yourself cannot properly be directed to yourself at all. You keep asking what it is you are. This implies that the answer is not only one you know, but is also one that is up to you to supply. Yet you cannot perceive yourself correctly. You have no image to be perceived. The word “image” is always perception-related, and not a part of knowledge. Images are symbolic and stand for something else. The idea of “changing your image” recognizes the power of perception, but also implies that there is nothing stable to know.

I understand this. I often ask the question, “What am I?” but I don’t ask myself and I don’t try to figure it out. Neither do I try to change what I am, that is, I don’t try to change the image you see when you look at me and then believe anything really changed. The image of Myron, body and personality, is not who I am.

I can play with that image all my life and no matter what seems to happen, nothing has been done. What I am cannot be changed, but it can be known. I simply have to ask the question of One Who knows. So far the answer has come as opportunities to let go of all I think I know. As that falls away I think that the truth will reveal itself.

5 Knowing is not open to interpretation. You may try to “interpret” meaning, but this is always open to error because it refers to the perception of meaning. Such incongruities are the result of attempts to regard yourself as separated and unseparated at the same time. It is impossible to make so fundamental a confusion without increasing your overall confusion still further. Your mind may have become very ingenious, but as always happens when method and content are separated, it is utilized in a futile attempt to escape from an inescapable impasse. Ingenuity is totally divorced from knowledge, because knowledge does not require ingenuity. Ingenious thinking is not the truth that shall set you free, but you are free of the need to engage in it when you are willing to let it go.

I am very curious about my origins. Where did I come from? When did I come? What am I? What is God? How can I be part of God when God created me? If there is no time, then there cannot be a when I was created and what on earth does that mean? These are questions I wonder about, but I don’t try to figure them out.

Sometimes I receive some clarity about one of my questions, but it does not come from the thinking mind. I notice that when I do get some unexpected clarity, it is not like it came from the encyclopedia. It is more like a knowing that would be pretty much impossible for me to put into words.

I remember a time when I used to sit around discussing philosophy and thinking that I was very clever. I remember thinking that I had it all figured out. I don’t even care anymore. I just want to know the next step so I can do my part. I know less, but am less confused.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 5-2-13

5-2-13
3 Knowing, as we have already observed, does not lead to doing. The confusion between your real creation and what you have made of yourself is so profound that it has become literally impossible for you to know anything. Knowledge is always stable, and it is quite evident that you are not. Nevertheless, you are perfectly stable as God created you. In this sense, when your behavior is unstable, you are disagreeing with God’s idea of your creation. You can do this if you choose, but you would hardly want to do it if you were in your right mind.

The first thing I had to do to really understand this was to become aware of my instability. As I thought about this the word that came to mind was honesty. In the Manual for Teachers there is a section on honesty. In part it says:

“The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do; no thought opposes any other thought; no act belies your word; and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything.”

I notice that I am closer now to being honest than I used to be. That means I am closer to being the self that God created. (Not that I could actually be anything else, but I am closer to accepting my self as God created me.) But as yet, I am still not honest.

I am not the judgmental person I used to be and yet I judge often. I notice judgmental thoughts in my mind, but instead of instantly believing them I question these thoughts and sooner, or maybe later, let them go. When I remember who I am there will be no temptation to believe judgmental thoughts.

I am learning that pain and suffering and death are not real. Sometimes when I am in pain I remind myself of the truth and the pain fades away. Sometimes when I am in pain I take a pain pill. Sometimes when I am in emotional pain I ask for clarity and the pain subsides or is transformed into joy. Sometimes I ride that train to the end of the line and wallow in self pity for awhile before I finally give it up.

I will be loving, kind and generous to one person, and judgmental, angry or maybe just indifferent to another person, as if one is more or less than another. Making one person special over another is dishonest. I am beginning to see how unstable my thinking and my behavior is and so I see why it is that I don’t know anything, but only perceive.

I am obviously still confused and so am in constant battle with God over my identity. God created me whole and I see myself as separate and different from others. God created me perfect, and I demonstrate daily my imperfections. God created me stable, honest, and all knowing, and there is apparently not one thing I am willing to absolutely know.

The thought that comes to me as I consider this is that there is great value in becoming aware of how unstable my mind is. The other thought is that it will not be helpful to try to change how I think or to control my behavior. This is not healing, but rather an attempt to use self-will to camouflage the belief in my mind. The solution is the Holy Spirit. Now that I am aware of the problem, I give it to the Holy Spirit for correction.

When I notice behavior or thinking that is out of accord with the truth, I put it on the altar. I offer it as a gift to God trusting He knows what to do with it. I accept His answer. In this one way I am becoming consistent. I practice this over and over and am learning to do so with patience and love and without guilt no matter how ugly the thought, or how often I must return with the same thought.

I trust that one day my perceptions will be corrected. One day I will know and there will be no more questions, no more doubts. This will be done, not through my efforts, but according to my desire. God will take that step for me.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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