Is peace really possible in this world? Certainly not while you believe that anything happening to you is caused by factors outside yourself. You will never escape from a dream if the cause of that dream is beyond you. The whole lesson of the miracle is that there is nothing beyond your self – “Nothing beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing is beyond you.”
God did not make this world, for as you evolve in this mind-training you will see very lucidly that, despite our best scientific efforts, at no instant can we even find the world we think we see. We can state categorically that the world is an idea made in the mind as an attack on God and on your Self. It arose simultaneously with the perceiver, evolving as an acquired ability to observe what appears to be outside the mind, the so-called “great projection”- objectivity itself. The cause and its effect at one yet now reversed so that it appears that the effect itself is a cause of what you are. And this we teach our children. It was made to be a place where you can come and never find peace, except of course finally, the hope of peace in death, yet death only appears to offer peace, it is a lie, a dreadful deceit, resolving nothing and offering only temporary respite from suffering.
As Kierkegaard would state in his ‘Sickness unto death’, it is not that we can be sick and finally be relieved of suffering in death, it is that we find ourselves trapped in endless repetitions of a dream of suffering and termination, knowing that we cannot die. Oh woe unto humanity!
“To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. He has looked on them, and found them wanting. Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him. And he has learned their only difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery as do the rest.” L185.5
To say and to mean you “want the peace of God” then, is to turn away from the dreaming of a world, to turn away from dreaming, meaning to want no dreams you think will resolve the problem as you see it. To die to dreams, to let the dreamer die and become nothing, wanting for nothing in the world, for one wholly auspicious moment in time. To turn to God and give all that is yours to Him, to make the ‘ultimate sacrifice’, to give your life in service to God and His Son – “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” KJv NT
Peace seems so impossible because the conditions have made it impossible for peace to enter. Therefore the individual must start with seeing how much their own ideas conflict with the conditions for peace. Peace is already here, you have no problems, you are at peace now, yet how alien is this to your experience of your self and of the world. Peace is established as fundamental to your nature as you were created. It is what you are because you are one with your Creator: Limitless Peace creates limitless peace creates limitless peace.
The great lesson 200 – “There is no peace except the peace of God” – is really the final place each one comes to – to see there is no way out of hell on your own terms. In other words complete forgiveness is actually the last act you will perform simply because you believe you can solve the problem as you see it. This volition is an extension of the arrogance of the separate ego-identity that believes it actually knows something at all! And as Jesus so poignantly states in T-31, “The one alternative” –“men have died on seeing this”, on seeing that there is no way out. That can save you a great deal of time dear friend in miracles! Forgiveness is your only way to find awareness of the peace of God, the peace that “passeth understanding”, the peace that is beyond the limited concept of your self, yet not beyond you, in this eternal moment where time stands still and quietly extends into forever.
How great a task it appears to be then, to wind your way back to what is already the silent ground of being from which you never could depart. We lift up our hearts and minds in gratitude to the One Who has given us the means, the Help and the demonstration. All that we need is given us, the Teacher has been with us since the beginning, the only question remaining is “how long oh Holy Son of God?” For we know the curriculum is set, our only freedom in the time it takes to learn that all you want is Truth, your only desire is God, to will only one thing and in that one thing find the remembrance of the One Self, the immortal and changeless perfection – “that knows its Self, its Source, its Holiness.”
“The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever. What it gives must be eternal. It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes by. All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and you who have received.
The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. And in His blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world.” W-188.4
Thank you! We can indeed say Amen for peace has come at last!
