ARCIM

Daily Lesson 185 ~
July 4

I want the Peace of the Divine.

To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. If you could truly mean them for just an Instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form, in any place or time. Heaven would completely return to full awareness, Memory of the Divine entirely restored, and the Resurrection of all Creation fully recognized.

Everyone who truly means these words must be healed. They cannot get lost in dreams, nor think they are themselves a dream. They cannot make a nightmare called separation and think it real. They want the Peace of the Divine and It is given them. For that is all they want, and that is all they will receive.

Many have said these words, but few indeed have wholly meant them. You have only to observe the world you perceive around you to be sure how very few they are. The world would be completely changed should any two agree that these words express the only thing they want. Two minds with one intent become so strong that what they will becomes the Will of the Divine. For minds can only truly join in Truth.

In the ego’s dreams no two can share the same intent. The hero of the dream is different to each; the outcome wanted not the same for both. 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 meaningless form. Yet all that such dreams can bring is a compromise of Truth. Sometimes the dream takes the form of union, but only the form. The Meaning of Union must be incomprehensible in the dream, for compromising Truth is the goal of dreaming. Minds asleep cannot unite in dreams. They merely bargain. And what bargain can give them the Peace of the Divine? Illusions come instead to take Its Place, and what It means is lost to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to their own gain and to another’s loss.

To mean you want the Peace of the Divine is to relinquish all of the ego’s dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means that bring illusions. They have perceived dreams and illusions clearly and found them wanting. Now they seek to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream, unless it be the Holy Spirit’s happy Dream, would offer nothing more than all the others. The ego’s dreams are all the same to them. And they have learned that the only difference in all of them is one of form, for any of its dreams will bring the same content of despair and misery as do the rest.

The mind that truly means that all it wants is the Peace of the Divine must join with other minds, for that is how Peace is obtained. And when the desire for Peace is genuine, the Means for finding It are given in a form of learning that each mind that seeks for It honestly can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for each in such a way that they cannot mistake it if their asking is sincere. But if they ask without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned.

Let us today devote our practicing to recognizing that we really mean the words we say. We truly want the Peace of the Divine. This is no idle wish. These words do not request that another glittering illusion and unhappy dream be given us. They do not ask for compromise of Truth, nor try to make another bargain with illusions in the hope that there must yet be one that can succeed where all the rest have failed. To mean these words acknowledges that all illusions are in vain, and requests the Eternal in the place of shifting dreams that seem to change in what they offer, but are the same in nothingness.

Today devote your practice periods to careful searching of your mind, to find the ego’s dreams you cherish still. What do you ask for in your heart? Forget the words you use in making your requests. Consider only what you believe will comfort you and bring you happiness. But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions, for their form is not what matters now. Let not some unhappy dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others. They are the same. And being the same, one question should be asked of all of them:

 

“Is this what I would choose and have instead of Heaven and the Peace of the Divine?”

 

This is the choice you make. Be not deceived that it is otherwise. No compromise is possible in this. You choose the Divine’s Peace or you have asked for the ego’s dreams, and such dreams will come as you requested them. Yet will the Divine’s Peace come just as certainly, to remain with you forever. It will not be gone with every twist and turning of the road, to reappear unrecognized in forms that shift and change with every step you take.

You do truly want the Peace of the Divine. And so do all who seem to seek for glittering illusions and shifting dreams. For them as well as for yourself you ask only for Peace when you make this request with deep sincerity. For thus you reach to what you really want, and join your own intent with what your sisters and brothers also seek above all things, perhaps unknown to them, but sure to you. You have been wavering at times, uncertain in your Purpose, and unsure of what you wanted, where to seek it, and where to turn for help in the attempt. Help has been given you. And you avail yourself of this Help by sharing It.

Everyone who truly seeks the Peace of the Divine must succeed in finding It. For they merely request that they deceive themselves no longer by denying to themselves what is the Divine’s Will. Who can remain unsatisfied who asks for what they already have? Who could be unanswered who requests an Answer that is theirs to give?

The Peace of the Divine is yours. For you It was created, given you by Its Creator, and established as the Divine’s Own eternal Gift. How can you fail when you only ask for what the Divine wills for you? And how could your request be limited to you alone? Every Gift of the Divine must be shared. It is this Attribute that sets these Gifts apart from every dream that ever seemed to take the place of Truth.

No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any Gift of the Divine has been requested and received by anyone. The Divine gives only to unite. To take away is meaningless to It. And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with It and It with you. And you will also know you share one Will with all your sisters and brothers, whose intent is yours.

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 is beyond despair, the Love that separation would hide, the Divine Family that guilt has sought to sever, but that still remains as the Divine created It. With Help like this beside us, we can only succeed today as we request that the Peace of the Divine be given us.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 16: The Holy Instant

 

10. The Message of the Time of Innocence

You who have believed that sacrifice is Love must learn that sacrifice is separation from Love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as Love brings Peace. Guilt is the condition of sacrifice, as Peace is the Condition for the awareness of your Relationship with the Divine. For through guilt you exclude your Creator and your sisters and brothers from yourself. And through Peace you invite them back, and realize they are where your invitation bids them be.

What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you endowed It with fear, and tried to cast It out, though It was part of you. Who can perceive part of themselves as loathsome, and live within themselves in peace? And who can try to resolve the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell in themselves by giving Heaven the attributes of hell, and casting It out, without experiencing themselves as incomplete and lonely?

As long as you perceive the body as your reality – your center of awareness and touchstone of what is true – so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice. For who could thrust Heaven and Its Creator aside through their belief that they are a body without a profound sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to restore themselves? Yet how could you restore yourself when the basis of your attempts is the belief in the reality of the deprivation you projected onto the world? For deprivation breeds attack, being the belief that attack is justified from being unfairly treated by something outside yourself. And as long as you would retain the deprivation, attack replaces awakening, and sacrifice replaces Love.

So is it that in all your seeking for Love you have sought for sacrifice, and found it. Yet you didn’t find Love. For it is impossible to deny what Love is, and still recognize It to find It. The Meaning of Love is in what you have cast outside yourself, and It has no meaning at all apart from you. It is what you preferred to keep that has no meaning, while all that you would keep away holds all the Meaning of the Universe, and holds the Universe together in Its Meaning. For unless the Universe were joined in you, It would be apart from the Divine, and to be without It is to be without Meaning.

In the Holy Instant the Condition of Love is met, for minds are joined without the body’s interference, and where there is true Communication there is Peace. The Messenger of Peace was born to reestablish the Condition of Love, by teaching that true Communication remains unbroken with or without the body, provided that you do not perceive the body as the necessary means of Communication. And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to “sacrifice” the body as means of communication is to sacrifice nothing. For true Communication, which must be of the mind, cannot be sacrificed. Where, then, is sacrifice?

The lesson I was born to teach, and would still teach to all my sisters and brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and Love is Everywhere. True Communication embraces Everything, and in the Peace It reestablishes, Love comes of Itself. Let no despair darken the Joy of the time of our rebirth, for the Time of Innocence is meaningless apart from Joy. Let us join in celebrating Peace by releasing everyone from all demands of sacrifice in any form, for so will you offer me the Love I offer you. What can be more joyous than to perceive that we are deprived of nothing? Such is the Message of the Time of Innocence, which I give you that you may give It, and return It to the Creator, Who gave It to me. For in the Time of Innocence Communication with the Divine is restored, and It joins us in the Celebration of Its Children’s creation. The Divine offers thanks to the holy Host who would receive It and let It enter and abide where It would be. And by your welcome does the Divine welcome you into Itself. For what is contained in you who welcome It is returned to It. And we celebrate Its Wholeness as we welcome It into ourselves.

Those who receive the Creator are One with It, being Host to It Who created them. And by allowing It to enter, the Peace of the Creator enters with It, and in this Peace they remember their Relationship with their Creator and with all Its Children. This is the Instant in which a new era is born from the Time of Divine Essence. I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish. Everything will be abundantly provided, and you will render complete rather than leave undone. Say to your sisters and brothers, and understand, this:

 

I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself. I know that you will be released because I would not use you to imprison myself. In the Name of my Freedom I will your Release, because I recognize that we will be released together.

 

So will this time of rebirth begin in Joy and Freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the Holy Instant as this new era is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this time of rebirth different by recognizing all that is truly alike. And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen.