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Chapter 32: The Final Vision

4. The Purpose Is the Answer

There is a tendency to think that the world of illusions can offer consolation and escape from problems that its purpose is to keep. Why would this be its purpose? Because the world of illusions is a place where choice among illusions seems to be the only choice, and where you seek to be in control of outcomes of your choosing, rather than their cause, where alone choice is possible. Thus you think, within the narrow band from birth to death, that a little time is given you to use for you alone, a time when everyone conflicts with you, but you can choose which road will lead you out of conflict and away from difficulties that are not really your concern. But they are your concern because you are their cause. Otherwise you could perceive them not. How, then, can you release yourself from them by attempting to leave them behind rather than resolving them? What has to go with you you will take with you whatever road you choose to walk along.

Real choice is no illusion, but the world of illusions has no real choice to offer. Because this world is not really there, its roads lead only to nothingness, disappointment, and seeming death. There is no choice in these apparent alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made so that problems could not be escaped, being perceived as outside yourself. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have only one end. And each is merely the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start, and however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to what must perish, itself an illusion. On some you travel gaily for a while before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not what the ending will be, but only when it will come.

There is no choice when the end of every option is the same, and certain. Perhaps you would prefer to try them all in order to learn they are but one. The number of roads this world can offer seems to be quite large, but the time must come when everyone begins to perceive how like they are to one another. Some people have perished perceiving this, because they believed that there were no ways to go except the pathways offered by the world. And learning that these pathways lead nowhere, they lost their hope. And yet this is the time that the greatest Lesson can be learned. Everyone must eventually reach this point and go beyond it. It is true indeed that there is no choice at all within the world of illusions. But this truth is not the lesson itself. The lesson has a purpose, and in this you come to understand what the lesson is for.

Why would you seek to find awakening on still another road, in another place or with another person, when you have learned the way that the true Lesson starts – that there is no choice at all within the world – though you do not yet perceive what the Lesson is for. The Lesson’s Purpose is to lead to the Answer to the search that all must undertake who still believe there is another answer to be found. Learn now, without despair, that there is no hope of answers in the world. But do not judge the Lesson that only begins with this understanding. Seek not another signpost in the world that seems to point to still another road. No longer turn for hope where there is none. Make fast your learning now, and understand you only waste time unless you go beyond what you have learned to what is yet to learn. For from this lowest point will learning lead to Heights of Happiness, in which you see the Purpose of the Lesson – the Answer – shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp.

Why would you be willing to let go of all the pathways of the world unless you understood their real futility, and what is beyond them that is real? Is it not needful that you should begin with this to seek another Way instead? For while you perceive a choice where there is none, what power of decision can you use? The great Release of Strength must begin with learning where Power really has a use. And what decision has power if it be applied in situations without choice? The Lesson that the world can offer only one choice, no matter what its form may be, is the beginning of acceptance that there is a real alternative instead. To fight against this step is to defeat your Purpose here. You did not come here to learn to find a road that is not here.

The search along different pathways in the world is merely the search for different forms of truth. And this keeps the Truth from being reached. Think not that Happiness is ever found by following a road away from It. This makes no sense, and cannot be the Way. To you who seem to find this Course too difficult to learn, let it be repeated that to achieve a goal, you must proceed in its direction, not away from it. And every road that goes the other way will not advance you toward the goal you seek to achieve. If this be difficult to understand, then is this Course impossible to learn. But only then. For otherwise, it is a simple teaching in the obvious.

There is a real choice that you have power to make, when you have perceived the actual alternatives. Until that point is reached you have no choice, and you can only decide how you would choose the better to deceive yourself again. This Course aims to teach no more than that the Power of decision cannot be in choosing different forms of what is still the same illusion and the same mistake. All false choices in the world depend on the belief that you choose between your sisters and brothers and yourself, and that you will gain as much as they will lose, and what you lose is what is given them. How utterly opposed to Truth is this belief, when the true Lesson’s Purpose is to teach that what your brother or sister loses you have lost, and what they truly gain is what is given you.

The Divine’s Thoughts – Its Children – have not left Their Source, nor has Their Source left Them! But you forgot Its Presence and Its Love. No pathway in the world of illusions can lead to the Divine, nor any worldly goal be one with Its. What road in all the world will lead within, when every road was made to separate the journey from the purpose it must have unless it be but futile wandering? All roads that lead away from what you are will lead you to confusion and despair. Yet has the Divine never left Its Thoughts. Their Source is forever in Themselves. They have not been left to perish. The Divine could no more depart from Them than They could from It. In Unity with It do They abide forever, and in Their Oneness both are kept complete.

There is no true road that leads away from the Divine. A journey away from yourself does not exist. How foolish it is to think that there could be a road with such an aim. Where could it go? And how could you be made to travel on it, walking there without your own reality at One with you? Forgive yourself such madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all goalless aims. They have no meaning. Be glad that you cannot escape from what you are. For the Divine is merciful, and did not let Its Children abandon It. For what It is be thankful, for in That is your release from madness and from death. Only where It is can you be found. Every true Path leads to It.