Lesson 185

I want the peace of God.

p1. To say these words is nothing. 2
But to mean these words is everything. 3 If
you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow
possible for you in any form; in any place or time. 4
Heaven would be completely given back to full awareness, memory of God entirely
restored, the resurrection of all creation fully recognized.

p2. No one can mean these words and not be healed. 2
He cannot play with dreams, nor think he is himself a dream. 3
He cannot make a hell and think it real. 4 He
wants the peace of God, and it is given him. 5
For that is all he wants, and that is all he will receive. 6
Many have said these words. 7 But few indeed
have meant them. 8 You have but to look upon
the world you see around you to be sure how very few they are. 9
The world would be completely changed, should any two agree these words
express the only thing they want.

p3. Two minds with one intent become so strong that what they will
becomes the Will of God. 2 For minds can only
join in truth. 3 In dreams, no two can share
the same intent. 4 To each, the hero of the
dream is different; the outcome wanted not the same for both. 5
Loser and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns, as the ratio of
gain to loss and loss to gain takes on a different aspect or another form.

p4. Yet compromise alone a dream can bring. 2
Sometimes it takes the form of union, but only the form. 3
The meaning must escape the dream, for compromising is the goal of dreaming.
4 Minds cannot unite in dreams. 5
They merely bargain. 6 And what bargain can
give them the peace of God? 7 Illusions come
to take His place. 8 And what He means is lost
to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to his gain and to another’s
loss.

p5. To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams.
2 For no one means these words who wants illusions,
and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. 3
He has looked on them, and found them wanting. 4
Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer
nothing more than all the others. 5 Dreams are
one to him. 6 And he has learned their only
difference is one of form, for one will bring the same despair and misery
as do the rest.

p6. The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with
other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. 2
And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given,
in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. 3
Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he
can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. 4
But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will
meet with acceptance and be truly learned.

p7. Let us today devote our practicing to recognizing that we really
mean the words we say. 2 We want the peace of
God. 3 This is no idle wish. 4
These words do not request another dream be given us. 5
They do not ask for compromise, nor try to make another bargain in the hope
that there may yet be one that can succeed where all the rest have failed.
6 To mean these words acknowledges illusions
are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreams which
seem to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness.

p8. Today devote your practice periods to careful searching of
your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. 2
What do you ask for in your heart? 3 Forget
the words you use in making your requests. 4
Consider but what you believe will comfort you, and bring you happiness.
5 But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions,
for their form is not what matters now. 6 Let
not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others.
7 They are one. 8
And being one, one question should be asked of all of them, “Is this what
I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God?”

p9. This is the choice you make. 2
Be not deceived that it is otherwise. 3 No compromise
is possible in this. 4 You choose God’s peace,
or you have asked for dreams. 5 And dreams will
come as you requested them. 6 Yet will God’s
peace come just as certainly, and to remain with you forever. 7
It will not be gone with every twist and turning of the road, to reappear,
unrecognized, in forms which shift and change with every step you take.

p10. You want the peace of God. 2
And so do all who seem to seek for dreams. 3
For them as well as for yourself, you ask but this when you make this request
with deep sincerity. 4 For thus you reach to
what they really want, and join your own intent with what they seek above
all things, perhaps unknown to them, but sure to you. 5
You have been weak at times, uncertain in your purpose, and unsure of what
you wanted, where to look for it, and where to turn for help in the attempt.
6 Help has been given you. 7
And would you not avail yourself of it by sharing it?

p11. No one who truly seeks the peace of God can fail to find
it. 2 For he merely asks that he deceive himself
no longer by denying to himself what is God’s Will. 3
Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what he has already? 4
Who could be unanswered who requests an answer which is his to give? 5
The peace of God is yours.

p12. For you was peace created, given you by its Creator, and
established as His Own eternal gift. 2 How can
you fail, when you but ask for what He wills for you? 3
And how could your request be limited to you alone? 4
No gift of God can be unshared. 5 It is this
attribute that sets the gifts of God apart from every dream that ever seemed
to take the place of truth.

p13. No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift
of God has been requested and received by anyone. 2
God gives but to unite. 3 To take away is meaningless
to Him. 4 And when it is as meaningless to you,
you can be sure you share one Will with Him, and He with you. 5
And you will also know you share one Will with all your brothers, whose
intent is yours.

p14. It is this one intent we seek today, uniting our desires
with the need of every heart, the call of every mind, the hope that lies
beyond despair, the love attack would hide, the brotherhood that hate has
sought to sever, but which still remains as God created it. 2
With Help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace
of God be given us?

Posted on July 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

permanent link

Lesson 184

The Name of God is my inheritance.

p1. You live by symbols. 2 You have
made up names for everything you see. 3 Each
one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. 4
By this you carve it out of unity. 5 By this
you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by
emphasizing space surrounding it. 6 This space
you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings
in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name.

p2. This space you see as setting off all things from one another
is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved. 2
You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there
is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. 3
Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. 4
By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with
an independent will.

p3. What are these names by which the world becomes a series of
discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits
of mind as separate awarenesses? 2 You gave
these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception
be. 3 The nameless things were given names,
and thus reality was given them as well. 4 For
what is named is given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause
of true effect, with consequence inherent in itself.

p4. This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully
set against the given truth. 2 Its enemy is
wholeness. 3 It conceives of little things and
looks upon them. 4 And a lack of space, a sense
of unity or vision that sees differently, become the threats which it must
overcome, conflict with and deny.

p5. Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction
for the mind to channel its perception. 2 It
is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more. 3
Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which
communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared.

p6. This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows. 2
And everyone who learns to think that it is so accepts the signs and symbols
that assert the world is real. 3 It is for this
they stand. 4 They leave no doubt that what
is named is there. 5 It can be seen, as is anticipated.
6 What denies that it is true is but illusion,
for it is the ultimate reality. 7 To question
it is madness; to accept its presence is the proof of sanity.

p7. Such is the teaching of the world. 2
It is a phase of learning everyone who comes must go through. 3
But the sooner he perceives on what it rests, how questionable are its premises,
how doubtful its results, the sooner does he question its effects. 4
Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning.
5 In its proper place, it serves but as a starting
point from which another kind of learning can begin, a new perception can
be gained, and all the arbitrary names the world bestows can be withdrawn
as they are raised to doubt.

p8. Think not you made the world. 2
Illusions, yes! 3 But what is true in earth
and Heaven is beyond your naming. 4 When you
call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. 5
His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is. 6
His body makes response to what you call him, for his mind consents to take
the name you give him as his own. 7 And thus
his unity is twice denied, for you perceive him separate from you, and he
accepts this separate name as his.

p9. It would indeed be strange if you were asked to go beyond all
symbols of the world, forgetting them forever; yet were asked to take a
teaching function. 2 You have need to use the
symbols of the world a while. 3 But be you not
deceived by them as well. 4 They do not stand
for anything at all, and in your practicing it is this thought that will
release you from them. 5 They become but means
by which you can communicate in ways the world can understand, but which
you recognize is not the unity where true communication can be found.

p10. Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning
of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go
into the sunlight and forget the darkness. 2
Here you understand the Word, the Name which God has given you; the one
Identity which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true.
3 And then step back to darkness, not because
you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still
have meaning in the world that darkness rules.

p11. Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the
world of darkness. 2 Yet accept them not as
your reality. 3 The Holy Spirit uses all of
them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one meaning, and a single
Source which unifies all things within Itself. 4
Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do
not forget they share the Name of God along with you.

p12. God has no name. 2 And yet His
Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson
does all learning end. 3 All names are unified;
all space is filled with truth’s reflection. 4
Every gap is closed, and separation healed. 5
The Name of God is the inheritance He gave to those who chose the teaching
of the world to take the place of Heaven. 6
In our practicing, our purpose is to let our minds accept what God has given
as the answer to the pitiful inheritance you made as fitting tribute to
the Son He loves.

p13. No one can fail who seeks the meaning of the Name of God.
2 Experience must come to supplement the Word.
3 But first you must accept the Name for all
reality, and realize the many names you gave its aspects have distorted
what you see, but have not interfered with truth at all. 4
One Name we bring into our practicing. 5 One
Name we use to unify our sight.

p14. And though we use a different name for each awareness of
an aspect of God’s Son, we understand that they have but one Name, which
He has given them. 2 It is this Name we use
in practicing. 3 And through Its use, all foolish
separations disappear which kept us blind. 4
And we are given strength to see beyond them. 5
Now our sight is blessed with blessings we can give as we receive.

p15. Father, our Name is Yours. 2
In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their one Creator.
3 What we made and call by many different names
is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own reality. 4
And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. 5
All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects
our errors seemed to have. 6 And we accept the
truth You give, in place of every one of them. 7
Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. 8
Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. 9
Amen.

Posted on July 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

permanent link

Lesson 183

I call upon God’s Name and on my own.

p1. God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. 2
To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. 3
A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. 4
His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which
they turn for their identity. 5 Your Father’s
Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even
though you have not remembered it.

p2. God’s Name can not be heard without response, nor said without
an echo in the mind that calls you to remember. 2
Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which
you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe,
and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your
holiness.

p3. Repeat God’s Name, and all the world responds by laying down
illusions. 2 Every dream the world holds dear
has suddenly gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star; a miracle
of grace. 3 The sick arise, healed of their
sickly thoughts. 4 The blind can see; the deaf
can hear. 5 The sorrowful cast off their mourning,
and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world.

p4. Repeat the Name of God, and little names have lost their meaning.
2 No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted
thing before God’s Name. 3 Repeat His Name,
and see how easily you will forget the names of all the gods you valued.
4 They have lost the name of god you gave them.
5 They become anonymous and valueless to you,
although before you let the Name of God replace their little names, you
stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.

p5. Repeat the Name of God, and call upon your Self, Whose Name
is His. 2 Repeat His Name, and all the tiny,
nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. 3
Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the
Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God. 4
And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat
God’s Name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there
an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son.

p6. Practice but this today; repeat God’s Name slowly again and
still again. 2 Become oblivious to every name
but His. 3 Hear nothing else. 4
Let all your thoughts become anchored on this. 5
No other word we use except at the beginning, when we say today’s idea but
once. 6 And then God’s Name becomes our only
thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only
wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of everything
that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own.

p7. Thus do we give an invitation which can never be refused. 2
And God will come, and answer it Himself. 3
Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names
of idols cherished by the world. 4 They cannot
reach Him thus. 5 He cannot hear requests that
He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His.

p8. Repeat God’s Name, and you acknowledge Him as sole Creator
of reality. 2 And you acknowledge also that
His Son is part of Him, creating in His Name. 3
Sit silently, and let His Name become the all-encompassing idea that holds
your mind completely. 4 Let all thoughts be
still except this one. 5 And to all other thoughts
respond with this, and see God’s Name replace the thousand little names
you gave your thoughts, not realizing that there is one Name for all there
is, and all that there will be.

p9. Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience
the gift of grace. 2 You can escape all bondage
of the world, and give the world the same release you found. 3
You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering.
4 You can accept today the part you play in
its salvation, and your own as well. 5 And both
can be accomplished perfectly.

p10. Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given
you. 2 No prayer but this is necessary, for
it holds them all within it. 3 Words are insignificant,
and all requests unneeded when God’s Son calls on his Father’s Name. 4
His Father’s Thoughts become his own. 5 He makes
his claim to all his Father gave, is giving still, and will forever give.
6 He calls on Him to let all things he thought
he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes
his judgment of their worthlessness.

p11. All little things are silent. 2
Little sounds are soundless now. 3 The little
things of earth have disappeared. 4 The universe
consists of nothing but the Son of God, who calls upon his Father. 5
And his Father’s Voice gives answer in his Father’s holy Name. 6
In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends
all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly
convey, is peace eternal. 7 In our Father’s
Name, we would experience this peace today. 8
And in His Name, it shall be given us.

Posted on July 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

permanent link

Lesson 182

I will be still an instant and go home.

p1. This world you seem to live in is not home to you. 2
And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. 3
A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called
you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the
voice reminds you of. 4 Yet still you feel an
alien here, from somewhere all unknown. 5 Nothing
so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. 6
Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other
times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind
again.

p2. No one but knows whereof we speak. 2
Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their
time, and keep their sadness from them. 3 Others
will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. 4
Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be
considered more than but a dream. 5 Yet who,
in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny
he understands the words we speak?

p3. We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is
not at home. 2 He goes uncertainly about in
endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing
what it is he seeks. 3 A thousand homes he makes,
yet none contents his restless mind. 4 He does
not understand he builds in vain. 5 The home
he seeks can not be made by him. 6 There is
no substitute for Heaven. 7 All he ever made
was hell.

p4. Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would
find again. 2 The childhood of your body, and
its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold
a picture of a past that never happened. 3 Yet
there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father’s house, and knows that He
is alien here. 4 This childhood is eternal,
with an innocence that will endure forever. 5
Where this Child shall go is holy ground. 6
It is His Holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure
reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.

p5. It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. 2
It is this Child Who knows His Father. 3 He
desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to
let Him rest a while. 4 He does not ask for
more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can
return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father’s house. 5
You are His home as well. 6 He will return.
7 But give Him just a little time to be Himself,
within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.

p6. This Child needs your protection. 2
He is far from home. 3 He is so little that
He seems so easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call
for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises
of the world. 4 Yet does He know that in you
still abides His sure protection. 5 You will
fail Him not. 6 He will go home, and you along
with Him.

p7. This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. 2
He trusts in you. 3 He came because He knew
you would not fail. 4 He whispers of His home
unceasingly to you. 5 For He would bring you
back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He
does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts.
6 His patience has no limits. 7
He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to
let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with
Him.

p8. When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from
you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then
will you hear His Voice. 2 So poignantly He
calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. 3
In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him
in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by
fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.

p9. Rest with Him frequently today. 2
For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him
how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love’s messages
to those who think he is their enemy. 3 He holds
the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength
to them, that they may see He would be Friend to them. 4
He asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, and He will not
return to it alone.

p10. Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer
would leave his home. 2 For he must learn that
what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is
protected by defenselessness. 3 Go home with
Him from time to time today. 4 You are as much
an alien here as He.

p11. Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing,
and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence.
2 Christ has called you friend and brother.
3 He has even come to ask your help in letting
Him go home today, completed and completely. 4
He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection
and for love. 5 He rules the universe, and yet
He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your
gods no more.

p12. You have not lost your innocence. 2
It is for this you yearn. 3 This is your heart’s
desire. 4 This is the voice you hear, and this
the call which cannot be denied. 5 The holy
Child remains with you. 6 His home is yours.
7 Today He gives you His defenselessness, and
you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. 8
And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. 9
Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.

Posted on July 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link

permanent link

Email Version

Enter your Email


Preview | Powered by FeedBlitz

Archives

Syndicate

 

Recently