Failure is of the ego, not of God. From Him you cannot wander, and there is no possibility that the plan the Holy Spirit offers to everyone, for the salvation of everyone, will not be perfectly accomplished. T-13.XI.11:4,5.
... whatever form it takes, your guilt arises from your failure to fulfill your function in God's Mind with all of yours. Can you escape this guilt by failing to fulfill your function here? T-14.IV.3:9,10.
Is not the escape of
God's beloved Son from evil dreams that he imagines, yet believes are
true, a worthy purpose? Who could hope for more, while there appears
to be a choice to make between success and failure; love and fear? W-200.6:5,6. [Lesson:”There is no peace except for the peace of
God.”]
Fear not to give
redemption over to your Redeemer's Love. He will not fail you, for He
comes from One Who cannot fail. Accept your sense of failure as
nothing more than a mistake in who you are. For the holy host of God
is beyond failure, and nothing that he wills can be denied. You are
forever in a relationship so holy that it calls to everyone to escape
from loneliness, and join you in your love. And where you are must
everyone seek, and find you there. T-15.VIII.3:4-9.
… you cannot
distinguish between advance and retreat. Some of your greatest
advances you have judged as failures, and some of your deepest
retreats you have evaluated as success. T-18.V.1:5,6
The body that is asked
to be a god will be attacked, because its nothingness has not been
recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power in itself. ...
And it can fail to be what you demanded that it be. And you will hate
it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure does not lie in
that it is not more than it should be, but only in your failure to
perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness is your salvation,
from which you would flee. T-29.II.9:1,2,4-6.
The
first obstacle that peace must flow across is your desire to get rid
of it. For it cannot extend unless you keep it. You are the center
from which it radiates outward, to call the others in. You are its
home; its tranquil dwelling place from which it gently reaches out,
but never leaving you. T-19.IV.A.1:1-4.
Peace
could no more depart from you than from God. Fear not this little
obstacle. It cannot contain the Will of God. Peace will flow across
it, and join you without hindrance. .... The little wall will fall
away so quietly beneath the wings of peace. For peace will send its
messengers from you to all the world, and barriers will fall away
before their coming as easily as those that you interpose will be
surmounted. T-19.IV.A.4:3-6,11,12.
Every
response to the ego is a call to war, and war does deprive you of
peace. Yet in this war there is no opponent. ... Those whom you
perceive as opponents are part of your peace, which you are giving up
by attacking them. … When you give up peace, you are excluding
yourself from it. T-8.I.3:1,2,4,7.
If
you want peace you must abandon the teacher of attack. The Teacher of
peace will never abandon you. You can desert Him but He will never
reciprocate, for His faith in you is His understanding. ... With your
perfection ever in His sight, He gives the gift of peace to everyone
who perceives the need for peace, and who would have it. Make way for
peace, and it will come. For understanding is in you, and from it
peace must come. T-14.II.14:1-3,6-8.
...the
stage of real peace, for here is Heaven's state fully reflected. …
Who would "go" anywhere, if peace of mind is already
complete? And who would seek to change tranquility for something more
desirable? What could be more desirable than this? M-4.I.A.8:5,,8-10.
Holy child of God, when will you learn that only holiness can content you and give you peace? T-15.III.9:1.
…
holiness is merely the
result of letting the effects of sin be lifted, so what was always
true is recognized. T-20.VII.4:3.
In
the temple, Holiness waits quietly for the return of them that love
it. The Presence knows they will return to purity and to grace. ...
Life is as holy as the Holiness by which it was created. The Presence
of Holiness lives in everything that lives, for Holiness created
life, and leaves not what It created holy as Itself. T-14.IX.4:1,2,6,7.
All separation vanishes as holiness is shared. For holiness is power, and by sharing it, it gains in strength. T-15.VI.3:1,2.
The
response of holiness to any form of error is always the same.
There is no contradiction in what holiness calls forth. Its
one response is healing, without regard for what is brought to it.
Those who have learned to offer only healing, because of the
reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. ...
They do not merely reflect truth, for they are truth. T-14.IX.8:1-4,7.
Let
not the form of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is
yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would
show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes
can see. Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your
perception of his sins and of his body. Beyond his errors is his
holiness and your salvation. ... his holiness is your
forgiveness. Can you be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness
is your salvation? T-22.III.8:1-3,7,8.
Correction
is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy
Spirit's mission, ... . He would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting
to the remembering of God. Christ's eyes are open, and He will look
upon whatever you see with love if you accept His vision as yours. T-12.VI.4:1-4.
Be willing, for an instant, to leave your altars free of what you placed upon them, and what is really there you cannot fail to see. The holy instant is not an instant of creation, but of recognition. For recognition comes of vision and suspended judgment. Then only it is possible to look within and see what must be there, plainly in sight, and wholly independent of inference and judgment. Undoing is not your task, but it is up to you to welcome it or not. Faith and desire go hand in hand, for everyone believes in what he wants. T-21.II.8.
Vision
depends on light. You cannot see in darkness. … Dreams disappear
when light has come and you can see. Do not seek vision
through your eyes, for you made your way of seeing that you might see
in darkness, and in this you are deceived. Beyond this darkness, and
yet still within you, is the vision of Christ, Who looks on all in
light. Your "vision" comes from fear, as His from love. And
He sees for you, as your witness to the real world. T-13.V.8:1,2,9/9:1-4.
What
has no meaning cannot be perceived. And meaning always looks within
to find itself, and then looks out. All meaning that you give
the world outside must thus reflect the sight you saw within; or
better, if you saw at all or merely judged against. Vision is the
means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy
dreams; your wild hallucinations that show you all the fearful
outcomes of imagined sin into the calm and reassuring sights with
which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are
looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are His substitutes for
all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego's purpose
brought to your horrified awareness. They step away from sin,
reminding you that it is not
reality which frightens you, and that the errors which you made can
be corrected. T-20.VIII.10.
Spiritual vision literally cannot see error, and merely looks for Atonement. All solutions the physical eye seeks dissolve. Spiritual vision looks within and recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled and needs to be repaired and protected. Perfectly aware of the right defense it passes over all others, looking past error to truth. T-2.III.IV:1-4.
Fantasies
become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality
becomes apparent to both giver and receiver. T-1.VII.3:11.
Fantasy
is a distorted form of vision. Fantasies of any kind are distortions,
because they always involve twisting perception into unreality.
Actions that stem from distortions are literally the reactions of
those who know not what they do. Fantasy is an attempt to control
reality according to false needs. Twist reality in any way and you
are perceiving destructively. Fantasies are a means of making false
associations and attempting to obtain pleasure from them. But
although you can perceive false associations, you can never make them
real except to yourself. You believe in what you make. T-1.VII.3:1-7
... only your wish to
change reality that is fearful, because by your wish you think you
have accomplished what you wish. ...You cannot be faithful to two
masters who ask conflicting things of you. What you use in fantasy
you deny to truth. Yet what you give to truth to use for you is safe
from fantasy. T-17.I.2:1,4-6.
Think
you that you can bring truth to fantasy, and learn what truth means
from the perspective of illusions? Truth has no meaning in
illusion. The frame of reference for its meaning must be itself. When
you try to bring truth to illusions, you are trying to make illusions
real, and keep them by justifying your belief in them. T-17.I.5:1-4.
What
can be fearful but fantasy, and who turns to fantasy unless he
despairs of finding satisfaction in reality? Yet it is certain that
you will never find satisfaction in fantasy, so that your only hope
is to change your mind about reality. T-9.IV.10:1,2.
Salvation
lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they
are not true. They but seem to be fearful to the extent to which you
fail to recognize them for what they are; and you will fail to do
this to the extent to which you want them to be true. T-16.V.14:1,2.
The
miracle, being a way of perceiving, is not knowledge. It is the right
answer to a question, but you do not question when you know.
Questioning illusions is the first step in undoing them. The miracle,
or the right answer, corrects them. … Knowledge is timeless,
because certainty is not questionable. You know when you have ceased
to ask questions. T-3.III.2:4-7,10,11.
The
ego compromises with the issue of the eternal, just as it does with
all issues touching on the real question in any way. By becoming
involved with tangential issues, it hopes to hide the real question
and keep it out of mind. ... the one question that is never asked by
those who pursue them is, "What
for?" This is the question that you
must learn to ask in connection with everything. What is the
purpose? Whatever it is, it will direct your efforts automatically.
When you make a decision of purpose, then, you have made a decision
about your future effort; a decision that will remain in effect
unless you change your mind. T-4.V.6:3,4,7-11.
The ego does not know
what a real question is, although it asks an endless number. Yet you
can learn this as you learn to question the value of the ego, and
thus establish your ability to evaluate its questions.
T-8.IX.1:3,4.
All
questions asked within this world are but a way of looking, not a
question asked. A question asked in hate cannot be answered, because
it is an answer in itself. A double question asks and answers, both
attesting the same thing in different form. The world asks but one
question. It is this: "Of these illusions, which of them is
true? ...
A pseudo-question has no
answer. It dictates the answer even as it asks. Thus is all
questioning within the world a form of propaganda for itself. ... the
answers to the questions of the world contained within the questions
that are asked … . An honest question is a learning tool that asks
for something that you do not know. It does not set conditions for
response, but merely asks what the response should be. But no one in
a conflict state is free to ask this question, for he does not want
an honest answer where the conflict ends. T-27.IV.4:1-5/5:1-4,6-8.
