T. 21. VII. 13 & VIII. 1 – 3. Jesus: “Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing form that shifts with time and place, is but an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness must be constant to be true, because it is attained by giving up the wish for the in-constant. Joy cannot be perceived except through constant vision. And constant vision can be given only those who wish for the eternal constancy of truth!
The proof that he is wrong who sees himself as helpless lies in the power of the Son of God’s desire. Wholly desire what you want, and you will look on it and think it real! No thought but has the power to either release or kill. And none can leave the thinker’s mind, or leave him unaffected! Are thoughts, then, dangerous? To bodies, which are thoughts themselves; oh yes!
The thoughts that seem to kill are those that teach the thinker that he can be killed! And so he seems to ‘die’ because of what he learned. He goes from life to death, the final proof he valued the inconstancy of illusion more than the constancy of truth. Surely, he thought he wanted happiness. Yet he did not desire it simply because it is the truth, and therefore constant!
The ‘constancy of joy’ is a condition still quite alien to your understanding! Yet if you could even imagine what it must be, you would desire it wholly even though you understand it not. The constancy of happiness has no exceptions; no change of any kind. It is unshakeable as is the Love of God for His creation!
Certain in its vision as its Creator is in what He knows, happiness looks on everything and sees it is the same. It sees not the ephemeral and passing, for it desires everything be like itself, and sees it so. Nothing has power to confound its constancy, because its own desire cannot be shaken. It comes as surely unto those who see the final question* as necessary to the rest, as peace must come to those who choose to heal and not to judge!
Reason will tell you that you cannot ask for happiness inconstantly. For if what you truly desire, you receive, and happiness is constant, then you need ask for it but once to have it always. And if you do not have it always, being what it is, you did not really ask for it!”
* The final question: ‘Do I want to see what I’ve denied before, because it is the truth?’