Failure is all about while goals are sought that cannot be achieved. Looking for permanence in the impermanent, for love where there is none, for safety in the midst of danger, and immortality within the darkness of the dream of death—who could succeed where contradiction is the setting of their searching, and the place to which they turn to find stability?
Goals that are meaningless are not attained. There is no way to reach them, for the means by which they are striven for are as meaningless as they are. Who can use such senseless means and hope through them to gain anything? Where can they lead? And what could they achieve that offers any hope of being real?
Pursuit of that which is imagined in fantasy must lead eventually to the illusion of death because it is the search for nothingness, and while one may seem to seek for life in seeking an illusion of nothing, death is what is secretly wished for. Those who can perceive no further than this world will look for safety and security in it and from it, while in their heart they pray for danger and then protection from this danger for the little dream they made.
Yet searching is inevitable here. For this you came to this world, 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 is 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 that you search for Heaven, and must find the Goal you really want. This Goal is everyone’s will, and each must reach It in the end. The Divine’s Children cannot seek vainly, even if they try to force delay, deceive themselves, and think that it is nightmares they seek. When they are wrong they will find Correction. When they wander off they are led back to their appointed task. No one can remain indefinitely in their illusion of hell, for no one can forever abandon their Creator, nor affect Its perfect, timeless and unchanging Love in any way.
You will find Heaven! Everything you seek except this will fall away, yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you will no longer want it. You will reach the Goal you really want as certainly as the Divine created you in Innocence.
Why wait for Heaven? It is here today. Time is the great illusion that Heaven is past or in the future. Yet this cannot be if It is where the Divine wills Its Children to be. How could the Will of the Divine be in the past or yet to happen? What It 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 have chosen until now 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. The Divine makes no contradictions. What denies its own being and attacks itself is not of the Divine. It did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad Effect of one, and a world of illusions the other’s sorry outcome that is Heaven’s opposite in every way.
The Divine does not suffer conflict. Nor is Its Creation split in two. How could it be that Its Children could be in hell when the Divine Itself established them in Heaven? Could they lose what the Eternal Will has given them to be their Home forever? Let us try no longer to impose an alien will upon the Divine’s single Purpose. The Divine is here because It wills to be, and what It wills is present now beyond the reach of time.
Today we will not choose paradox in place of Truth. How could the Children of the Divine make time to take away Eternity and the Will of the Divine? They would thus deny themselves, and contradict what has no opposite. They would think they made real a nightmare opposing Heaven, and believe that they abide in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place they cannot find no matter how they seek. Leave foolish thoughts like these behind today, and turn your mind to true Ideas instead.
Everyone must succeed 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 were held 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 seek to perceive a different world,
and think a different kind of thought from those I made.
The world I seek I did not make.
The Thoughts I want to think are not my own.”
For several minutes watch your mind and observe, although your eyes are closed, the senseless world you thought was real. Review the thoughts as well that are compatible with such a world, and that you have thought were 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 that you could not completely lock to hide what is beyond. Seek for that Door and find It. It leads to the deepest level of what has become unconsciousness for you. It is at this deepest level that the ability for miracles awaits. It is at this deepest level that the Memory of the Divine was placed when you forgot Reality. But before you try to open this Door, remind yourself that everyone must succeed 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 or sought. Nothing outside this Door and where It leads do you really want, and only what is 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 that 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 someday, and through Spirit’s Aid slip effortlessly past It to the Light beyond. Today that day has come. Today the Divine keeps Its ancient Promise to Its holy Child, as does Its Child remember its Promise to its Creator. 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 is a time of deep gladness, and refrain from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Awakening’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.
Everyone must succeed who seeks to reach the Truth.”