T. 24. Intro. & I. 1 & 2. Jesus: “Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and the keeping of the state of peace. Given this state the mind is quiet, and the condition in which God is remembered is attained.
It is not necessary to tell Him what to do. He will not fail! Can it be He cannot enter where He wills to be? Where He can enter, there He is already! Peace will be yours because it is His Will. Can you believe a shadow can hold back the Will that holds His universe secure? God does not wait upon illusions to let Him be Himself. No more His Son. They simply are! And what illusion that may idly seem to drift between them has the power to defeat what is Their Will?
To learn this course requires a willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure, but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral! Every one has the power to dictate each decision that you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. It is the outcome of belief, and follows it as surely as does suffering follow guilt, and freedom follow sinlessness.
There is no substitute for peace. What God creates is His extension and has no alternative. The truth arises from what He knows. And your decisions come from your beliefs as certainly as all creation rose in His Mind because of what He knows. Love is extension. To withhold the smallest gift is not to know love’s purpose.
Love offers everything forever! Hold back but one belief, one offering, and love is gone, because you asked a substitute, your specialness, to take its place. And now must war, the substitute for peace, come with the one alternative that you can choose for love. Your choosing specialness has given it all the reality it seems to have for you.
Because conflicting outcomes are impossible, beliefs will never openly attack each other. But an unrecognized belief is effectively a decision to ‘make war in secret,’ where the results of conflict are kept hidden. Such beliefs are never brought to reason, to be considered sensible or not. And many senseless outcomes have been reached, and meaningless decisions have been made and still kept hidden, to become beliefs now given power to direct all subsequent decisions. Mistake you not the power of these hidden warriors to disrupt your peace! For peace is at their mercy while you decide to leave it there.
The secret enemies of peace, your least decision to choose attack instead of love, unrecognized and swift to challenge you to combat and to violence, far more inclusive than you think, are there by your election. Do not deny their presence nor their terrible results! All that can be denied is their reality, but not their outcome for you while you cling to them.”