What is A Course in Miracles?

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a spiritual curriculum of 365 lessons designed to transform perception and restore inner peace.

How to practice the lesson of the day?

Read the lesson in the morning, apply it throughout the day, and use the summary to deepen your understanding.

If I am bound, my Father is not free.

If I accept that I am prisoner within a body, in a world in which all things that seem to live appear to die, then is my Father prisoner with me. And this do I believe, when I maintain the laws the world obeys must I obey; the frailties and the sins which I perceive are real, and cannot be escaped. If I am bound in any way, I do not know my

Father or my Self. And I am lost to all reality. For truth is free, and what is bound is not a part of truth. Father, I ask for nothing but the truth. I have had many foolish thoughts about myself and my creation, and have brought a dream of fear into my mind. Today I would not dream. I choose the way to You instead of madness and instead of fear. For truth is safe and only love is sure.

✨ Summary & practice

If you are bound, you believe God is imprisoned with you.

After proclaiming the freedom of the Son (Lesson 277), this lesson reveals the deep interdependence between your freedom and that of God. Within the curriculum, it is a lesson on profound unity. If you accept being imprisoned in a body, in a world where everything seems to die, then you believe your Father is imprisoned with you. Truth is free, and what is bound is not part of truth. If you are bound in any way, you do not know your Father or your Self.

The central idea is that belief in imprisonment is a belief about God Himself. If you insist that you must obey the laws of the world, that fragility and sin are real, then you do not know your Father or your Self. The narrator asks only for truth. He rejects foolish thoughts about himself and the dream of fear. He chooses the path to God instead of madness and fear. For truth is without danger, and only love is safe.

This lesson deepens Lesson 277 (freedom) and prepares for Lesson 279 (the freedom of creation promises mine). It echoes Lesson 248 (suffering is not part of me) and Lesson 260 (God created me). If God created you free, He Himself is free in you. To believe in your prison is to limit God. To choose your freedom is to honor God.

In practice, today, whenever you feel trapped in a situation, a relationship, a body, or an illness, pause and say: "If I am bound, I believe my Father is bound with me. But my Father is free, therefore I am free." Do not seek to understand how. Simply affirm freedom as truth. The feeling of being trapped is a belief, not a fact. By replacing it with truth, you untie the chains of the mind.

You are not a prisoner. God is not a jailer. You are free because God is free, and you are in Him. Let go of the bars you have built and walk in the light of freedom.