Lesson 131
- No One Can Fail Who Seeks to Reach the Truth
- Failure is all about You while You seek
- for goals that cannot be achieved. You look
- for permanence in the impermanent,
- for love where there is none, for safety in
- the midst of danger; immortality
- within the darkness of the dream of death.
- Who could succeed where contradiction is
- the setting of his searching, and the place
- to which He comes to find stability?
- Goals that are meaningless are not attained.
- There is no way to reach them for the means
- by which You strive for them are meaningless,
- as they are. Who can use such senseless means
- and hope through them to gain in anything?
- Where can they lead? And what could they achieve
- that offers any hope of being real?
- Pursuit of the imagined leads to death
- because it is the search for nothingness
- and while You seek for life You ask for death.
- You look for safety and security
- while in Your heart You pray for danger and
- protection for the little dream You made.
- Yet searching is inevitable here.
- For this You came and You will surely do
- the thing You came for. But the world cannot
- dictate the goal for which You search unless
- You give it power to do so. Otherwise
- You still are free to choose a goal that lies
- beyond the world and every worldly thought,
- and one that comes to You from an idea
- relinquished yet remembered, old yet new,
- an echo of a heritage forgot
- yet holding everything You really want.
- Be glad that search You must. Be glad as well
- to learn You search for heaven and must find
- the goal You really want. No One can fail
- to want this goal and reach it in the end.
- God’s Son cannot seek vainly though he try
- to force delay, deceive himself and think
- that it is hell He seeks. When He is wrong,
- He finds correction. When He wanders off
- He is led back to His appointed task.
- No One remains in hell for no One can
- abandon His Creator, nor affect
- His perfect, Timeless, and unchanging love.
- You will find heaven. Everything You seek
- but this will fall away. Yet not because
- it has been taken from You. It will go
- because You do not want it. You will reach
- the goal You really want as certainly
- as God created You in sinlessness.
- Why wait for heaven? It is here today.
- Time is the great illusion it is past
- or in the future. Yet this cannot be
- if it is where God wills His Son to be.
- How could the will of God be in the past
- or yet to happen? What He wills is now
- without a past and wholly futureless.
- It is as far removed from time as is
- a tiny candle from a distant star,
- or what you chose from what you really want.
- Heaven remains your one alternative
- to this strange world you made and all its ways,
- its shifting patterns and uncertain goals,
- its painful pleasures and its tragic joys.
- God made no contradictions. What denies
- its own existence and attacks itself
- is not of Him. He did not make two minds,
- with heaven as the glad effect of one
- and earth the other’s sorry outcome – which
- is heaven’s opposite in every way.
- God does not suffer conflict, nor is His
- creation split in two. How could it be
- His Son could be in hell when God Himself
- established Him in heaven? Could He lose
- what the eternal will has given Him
- to be His home forever? Let Us not
- try longer to impose an alien will
- upon God’s single purpose. He is here
- because He wills to be and what He wills
- is present now beyond the reach of time.
- Today we will not choose a paradox
- in place of truth. How could the Son of God
- make time, to take away the Will of God?
- He thus denies Himself and contradicts
- what has no opposite. He thinks He made
- a hell opposing heaven and believes
- that He abides in what does not exist
- while heaven is the place He cannot find.
- Leave foolish thoughts like these behind today
- and turn Your mind to true ideas instead.
- No One can fail Who seeks to reach the truth
- and it is truth We seek to reach today.
- We will devote ten minutes to this goal
- three times today and We will ask to see
- the rising of the real world to replace
- the foolish images that We hold dear,
- with true ideas arising in the place
- of thoughts that have no meaning, no effect,
- and neither source nor substance in the truth.
- This we acknowledge as we start upon
- our practice periods. Begin with this:
- “I ask to see a different world and think
- a different kind of thought from those I made.
- The world I seek I did not make alone;
- the thoughts I want to think are not my own.”
- For several minutes watch Your mind and see,
- although Your eyes are closed, the senseless world
- You think is real. Review the thoughts as well
- which are compatible with such a world
- and which You think are true. Then let them go
- and sink below them to the holy place
- where they can enter not. There is a door
- beneath them in Your mind which You could not
- completely lock to hide what lies beyond.
- Seek for that door and find it! But before
- You try to open it, remind Yourself
- no One can fail Who seeks to reach the truth,
- and it is this request You make today.
- Nothing but this has any meaning now.
- No other goal is valued now nor sought:
- nothing before this door you really want,
- and only what lies past it do you seek.
- Put out Your hand and see how easily
- the door swings open with Your one intent
- to go beyond it. Angels light the way
- so that all darkness vanishes and You
- are standing in a light so bright and clear
- that You can understand all things You see.
- A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps,
- will make You pause before You realize
- the world You see before You in the light
- reflects the truth You knew and did not quite
- forget in wandering away in dreams.
- You cannot fail today. There walks with You
- the Spirit heaven sent You, that You might
- approach this door some day and through His aid
- slip effortlessly past it to the light.
- Today that day has come. Today God keeps
- His ancient promise to His holy Son,
- as does His Son remember his to Him.
- This is a day of gladness for we come
- to the appointed time and place where you
- will find the goal of all your searching here,
- and all the seeking of the world which end
- together as you pass beyond the door.
- Remember often that today should be
- a time of special gladness, and refrain
- from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments.
- Salvation’s time has come. Today is set
- by heaven itself to be a time of grace
- for You and for the world. If You forget
- this happy fact remind Yourself with this:
-
- “Today I seek and find all that I want.
- My single purpose offers it to Me.
- No One can fail who seeks to reach the truth.”
