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<center>'''What Is the Peace of God?'''</center>


It has been said that there is a kind of peace that is not of this world. How is
it recognized? How is it found? And being found, how can it be retained?
Let us consider each of these questions separately, for each reflects a
different step along the way.

First, how can the peace of God be recognized? God's peace is recognized
at first by just one thing; in every way it is totally unlike all previous
experiences. It calls to mind nothing that went before. It brings with it no
past associations. It is a new thing entirely. There is a contrast, yes, between
this thing and all the past. But strangely, it is not a contrast of true
differences. The past just slips away, and in its place is everlasting quiet.
Only that. The contrast first perceived has merely gone. Quiet has reached
to cover everything.

How is this quiet found? No one can fail to find it who but seeks out its
conditions. God's peace can never come where anger is, for anger must
deny that peace exists. Who sees anger as justified in any way or any
circumstance proclaims that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it
cannot exist. In this condition, peace cannot be found. Therefore,
forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God. More
than this, given forgiveness there <must> be peace. For what except attack
will lead to war? And what but peace is opposite to war? Here the initial
contrast stands out clear and apparent. Yet when peace is found, the war is
meaningless. And it is conflict now that is perceived as nonexistent and
unreal.

How is the peace of God retained, once it is found? Returning anger, in
whatever form, will drop the heavy curtain once again, and the belief that
peace cannot exist will certainly return. War is again accepted as the one
reality. Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you do
not recognize that you have picked it up again. But you will learn, as you
remember even faintly now what happiness was yours without it, that you
must have taken it again as your defense. Stop for a moment now and think
of this: Is conflict what you want, or is God's peace the better choice?
Which gives you more? A tranquil mind is not a little gift. Would you not
rather live than choose to die?

Living is joy, but death can only weep. You see in death escape from what
you made. But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but
illusion of an end. Death cannot be escape, because it is not life in which the
problem lies. Life has no opposite, for it is God. Life and death seem to be
opposites because you have decided death ends life. Forgive the world, and
you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end,
and nothing He did not create is real. In this one sentence is our course
explained. In this one sentence is our practicing given its one direction. And
in this one sentence is the Holy Spirit's whole curriculum specified exactly
as it is.

What is the peace of God? No more than this; the simple understanding that
His Will is wholly without opposite. There is no thought that contradicts
His Will, yet can be true. The contrast between His Will and yours but
seemed to be reality. In truth there was no conflict, for His Will is yours.
Now is the mighty Will of God Himself His gift to you. He does not seek to
keep it for Himself. Why would you seek to keep your tiny frail imaginings
apart from Him? The Will of God is One and all there is. This is your
heritage. The universe beyond the sun and stars, and all the thoughts of
which you can conceive, belong to you. God's peace is the condition for His
Will. Attain His peace, and you remember Him.


[[Category:Manual for Teachers]]