Lesson 131. No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.
(1) Failure is all about you while you seek for goals that cannot be achieved.
You look for permanence in the impermanent, for love where there is none, for
safety in the midst of danger; immortality within the darkness of the dream of
death. Who could succeed where contradiction is the setting of his searching,
and the place to which he comes to find stability?
(2) Goals that are meaningless are not attained. There is no way to reach them,
for the means by which you strive for them are meaningless as they are. Who can
use such senseless means, and hope through them to gain in anything? Where can
they lead? And what could they achieve that offers any hope of being real?
Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness,
and while you seek for life you ask for death. You look for safety and security,
while in your heart you pray for danger and protection for the little dream you
made.
(3) Yet searching is inevitable here. For this you came, and you will surely do
the thing you came for. But the world can not dictate the goal for which you
search, unless you give it power to do so. Otherwise, you still are free to
choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one that
comes to you from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a
heritage forgot, yet holding everything you really want.
(4) Be glad that search you must. Be glad as well to learn you search for
Heaven, and must find the goal you really want. No one can fail to want this
goal and reach it in the end. God's Son can not seek vainly, though he try to
force delay, deceive himself and think that it is hell he seeks. When he is
wrong, he finds correction. When he wanders off, he is led back to his appointed
task.
(5) No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His
perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek
but this will fall away. Yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go
because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly
as God created you in sinlessness.
(6) Why wait for Heaven? It is here today. Time is the great illusion it is past
or in the future. Yet this cannot be, if it is where God wills His Son to be.
How could the Will of God be in the past, or yet to happen? What He wills is
now, without a past and wholly futureless. It is as far removed from time as is
a tiny candle from a distant star, or what you chose from what you really want.
(7) Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all
its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and
its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and
attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad
effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in
every way.
(8) God does not suffer conflict. Nor is His creation split in two. How could it
be His Son could be in hell, when God Himself established him in Heaven? Could
he lose what the Eternal Will has given him to be his home forever? Let us not
try longer to impose an alien will upon God's single purpose. He is here because
He wills to be, and what He wills is present now, beyond the reach of time.
(9) Today we will not choose a paradox in place of truth. How could the Son of
God make time to take away the Will of God? He thus denies himself, and
contradicts what has no opposite. He thinks he made a hell opposing Heaven, and
believes that he abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place he
cannot find.
(10) Leave foolish thoughts like these behind today, and turn your mind to true
ideas instead. No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth, and it is truth we
seek to reach today. We will devote ten minutes to this goal three times today,
and we will ask to see the rising of the real world to replace the foolish
images that we hold dear, with true ideas arising in the place of thoughts that
have no meaning, no effect, and neither source nor substance in the truth.
(11) This we acknowledge as we start upon our practice periods. Begin with this:
I ask to see a different world, and think a different kind
of thought from those I made. The world I seek I did not make
alone, the thoughts I want to think are not my own.
For several minutes watch your mind and see, although your eyes are closed, the
senseless world you think is real. Review the thoughts as well which are
compatible with such a world, and which you think are true. Then let them go,
and sink below them to the holy place where they can enter not. There is a door
beneath them in your mind, which you could not completely lock to hide what lies
beyond.
(12) Seek for that door and find it. But before you try to open it, remind
yourself no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. And it is this request
you make today. Nothing but this has any meaning now; no other goal is valued
now nor sought, nothing before this door you really want, and only what lies
past it do you seek.
(13) Put out your hand, and see how easily the door swings open with your one
intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes, and
you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all
things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before
you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you
knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams.
(14) You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you,
that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip
effortlessly past it, to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His
ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a
day of gladness, for we come to the appointed time and place where you will find
the goal of all your searching here, and all the seeking of the world, which end
together as you pass beyond the door.
(15) Remember often that today should be a time of special gladness, and refrain
from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Salvation's time has come. Today
is set by Heaven itself to be a time of grace for you and for the world. If you
forget this happy fact, remind yourself with this:
Today I seek and find all that I want.
My single purpose offers it to me.
No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
The commentary on this lesson is an excerpt from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of
books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can
be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
Lesson 131."No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."
*In one sense, this lesson is a commentary on the famous passage in the Sermon
on the Mount about seeking and finding: "... seek, and ye shall find; ... he
that seeketh findeth" (Matthew 7:7b, 8b) -- the most frequently quoted biblical
passage in A Course in Miracles. Thus we find enunciated here the important
theme that what we seek we will find: if we seek for happiness in the world, we
will have the illusion of finding it there; however, if we seek for it in our
minds, we will truly find it.*
(1:1) "Failure is all about you while you seek for goals that cannot be
achieved."
*This statement expresses the ego's fundamental maxim: <Seek but do not find>
(T-16.V.6:5). It tells us the problem is in the world, and its solution is there
as well. The ego's guidance thus aims to distract us from the real source of the
problem: the mind's decision maker choosing the ego over the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, the solution must also be in our minds: reversing our mistaken
decision. The ego camouflages that fact, having us believe instead we live in a
body. Since we all experience physical problems and discomfort, our happiness is
related to minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. Thus we seek for happiness
here, and our existence as creatures of the world is set up so we will never
truly find it, yet continually seek for it. Frustration, disappointment, and
despair are inevitable, as these two passages make clear:
"Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things, simply because it
has not made you happy. On this basis alone its value should be questioned. If
learning aims at change, and that is always its purpose, are you satisfied with
the changes your learning has brought you? Dissatisfaction with learning
outcomes is a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did not get what
you wanted."(T.8.I.4.1.4).
"There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as a curriculum he cannot
learn. His sense of adequacy suffers, and he must become depressed. Being faced
with an impossible learning situation is the most depressing thing in the world.
In fact, it is ultimately why the world itself is depressing. The Holy Spirit's
curriculum is never depressing, because it is a curriculum of joy. Whenever the
reaction to learning is depression, it is because the true goal of the
curriculum has been lost sight of." (T.8.VII.8.)
Therefore, only when we choose the Holy Spirit as our Teacher can we return to
the source of our discontent -- the mind's mistaken choice, which we now
correct.
The next paragraph continues the discussion of looking for something we will
never find.*
(2:1) "Goals that are meaningless are not attained."
*This is the secret the ego never lets us see. Our lives -- physically and
psychologically -- are programmed for failure, and with each one we are
motivated to strive even harder so that our next attempts will turn out
differently: our next job will be rewarding; our next attempts will turn out
differently: our next job will be rewarding; our next relationships will be
satisfying; our next car will outperform all the others; and on and on and on.
Such attempts, however, are inherently meaningless because they will not work.
This is what Jesus means by our involvement with tangential (or meaningless)
issues:
"By becoming involved with tangential issues, it hopes to hide the real
question and keep it out of mind. The ego's characteristic busyness with
nonessentials is for precisely that purpose. Preoccupations with problems set up
to be incapable of solution are favorite ego devices for impeding learning
progress." (T-4.V.6:4-6).
Thus do we strive to find something that will satisfy; and nothing will, yet we
keep trying and trying. In back of all of our attempts, however, is the ego's
sly laugh that says: "Of course, it will not work, because you do not deserve to
be happy." That thought becomes one of the final witnesses to the reality of our
guilt, and is the prime force behind our seeking and never finding.*
(3:1-2) "Yet searching is inevitable here. For this you came, and you will
surely do the thing you came for."
*The searching we came here to do -- indeed, why we were born -- is to find
happiness, which to the ego means sacrificing someone else. Once our problems
are perceived to be outside us, our judgments and attacks are justified -- the
core of the ego thought system of <one or the other>, <kill or be killed>. If I
exist, God must be destroyed. If I am to be innocent and escape His wrath,
another must be sinful. That is the nature of our searching, making truth and
happiness the effect of finding fault in someone else. This lets us off sin's
hook, as the following passage explains:
"Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated. In this
view, you seek to find an innocence that is not Theirs but yours alone, and at
the cost of someone else's guilt ... Whatever way the game of guilt is played,
there must be loss. Someone must lose his innocence that someone else can take
it from him, making it his own."
"You think your brother is unfair to you because you think that one must be
unfair to make the other innocent." (T-26.X.4:1-2,7--5:1).
Another important statement follows:*
(4:1-2) "Be glad that search you must. Be glad as well to learn you search for
Heaven, and must find the goal you really want."
*Searching is at the very heart of our nature as decision maker. We search for
individuality and attempt to secure it, reinforcing the thought system of the
ego and its world; or we realize we made a mistake and search for truth, which
means we choose the teacher who will lead us there. That is the meaning of "Be
glad that search you must" -- be glad you have a decision maker that can seek.
Thus Jesus urges us to search for the truth rather than illusions, for "no one
can fail who seeks to reach the truth." *
(5:1) "No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect
His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love."
*This restates the Atonement principle: the separation from God never happened.
We are free to dream we have separated and live in hell, but that does not
change reality. There remains the right-minded Presence of the Holy Spirit,
which reflects the "perfect, timeless and unchanging Love" that unites our will
with God's:
"God's plan for your salvation could not have been established without your
will and your consent. It must have been accepted by the Son of God, for what
God wills for him he must receive. For God wills not apart from him, nor does
the Will of God wait upon time to be accomplished. Therefore, what joined the
Will of God must be in you now, being eternal. You must have set aside a place
in which the Holy Spirit can abide, and where He is." (T-21.V.5:1-5).*
(6:1-3) "Why wait for Heaven? It is here today. Time is the great illusion it is
past or in the future."
*Lesson 188 opens with the line: "The peace of God is shining in me now"
(W-pI.188). Time, the ego's device <par excellence>, tells us Heaven is in the
past because we threw it away -- the meaning of sin. It also tells says that
even though we threw it away, if we suffer and sacrifice enough, paying God back
for what we did to Him in the past, we will regain Heaven in the future.*
(7) "Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all
its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and
its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and
attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad
effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in
every way."
*This is a classic statement of the non-duality of Heaven. God did not create
opposites -- the good and the bad, Heaven and the world. These are <our>
miscreations, our way of trying to combine Heaven and hell. The phrase "painful
pleasures and tragic joys" summarizes the nature of special relationships. What
we think brings us joy is tragic; what we thing brings us pleasure is painful.
There is no compromise in this regard. Recall Jesus' exclamation in the manual:
"Do not forget that sacrifice is total. There are no half sacrifices. You
cannot give up Heaven partially. You cannot be a little bit in hell. The Word of
God has no exceptions. It is this that makes it holy and beyond the world. It is
its holiness that points to God." (M-13.7:1-7).
The bad news to our wrong-minded thinking is that truth is <all or nothing>. The
good news to our right-minded self is that truth is <all or nothing>. *
(8:1-3) "God does not suffer conflict. Nor is His creation split in two. How
could it be His Son could be in hell, when God Himself established him in
Heaven?"
*Hell is the ego thought system of separation and duality, not to mention sin,
guilt, and fear. When this system is projected it becomes the world. Therefore
it is not the world that is hell, but the thought system of which the world is
the projected shadow. Moreover, God does not only <not> suffer conflict, He does
not even perceive mistakes. He perceives nothing, because nothing exists outside
His Mind. Thus He certainly cannot experience "His creation split in two," as
the ego would have us believe. God's Son is One, indivisible in a unity that is
denied when we attack another, as the following passage explains:
"It is denied if you attack any brother for anything. For it is here the
split with God occurs. A split that is impossible. A split that cannot happen.
Yet a split in which you surely will believe, because you have set up a
situation that is impossible. And in this situation the impossible can seem to
happen." (M-13.7:7-14).*
(9:1-2) "Today we will not choose a paradox in place of truth. How could the Son
of God make time to take away the Will of God?"
*Again, students of A Course in Miracles often say that Jesus means it is only
our interpretations of the world that are illusory. Not so. The illusory world
is the universe of time and space, materiality and change. This cannot be the
eternal and infinite world of God, as the reader may recall from these moving
lines in the text:
"What seems eternal all will have an end. The stars will disappear, and
night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the
seasons and the lives of men; all things that change with time and bloom and
fade will not return. Where time has set an end is not where the eternal is.
God's Son can never change by what men made of him. He will be as he was and as
he is, for time appointed not his destiny, nor set the hour of his birth and
death. Forgiveness will not change him. Yet time waits upon forgiveness that the
things of time may disappear because they have no use." (T.29.VI.2.7-14)*
(10:1) "Leave foolish thoughts like these behind today, and turn your mind to
true ideas instead."
*Foolish thoughts are anything that makes this world real in our experience --
aspects of specialness. True ideas lead us from the world -- expressions of
forgiveness. Note that the turning to forgiveness entails leaving behind our
thoughts of specialness.*
(11:1-4) "This we acknowledge as we start upon our practice periods. Begin with
this:
I ask to see a different world, and think a different kind of thought from
those I made.
The world I seek I did not make alone, the thoughts I want to think are not
my own."
*Reflected here is the idea that we cannot "ask to see a different world, and
think a different thought" unless we are aware of our ego thoughts. That is why
it is essential to ask Jesus for help not to cover them up -- nor be guilty or
fearful of them -- but to expose their foolishness by bringing them to him. As
we learn to do this, we become aware that God's Son is one, both within the
illusion and in Heaven: the statement "the world I seek I did not make alone" is
true from both the ego's and the Holy Spirit's point of view.
The world we truly seek is the real world. A passage in the text refers to the
Holy Spirit as the Maker of the world -- the real world -- and Jesus uses
"Maker" instead of "Creator" because His world is an illusion, too. The real
world is not a place, but a system of thought that is the total opposite of the
ego's, and indeed represents its undoing. Choosing one is achieved by releasing
the other. <One or the other> remains the only principle governing our decision:
the ego's darkness or the Holy Spirit's light; illusion or truth; error or its
correction. Here is the passage:
"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad
belief that anything could be established and maintained without some link that
kept it still within the laws of God; ... Corrected error is the error's end.
And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error. ..."
"There is another purpose in the world that error made, because it has
another Maker Who can reconcile its goal with His Creator's purpose ..."
"Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no one has entered it alone. Nor
need he stay more than an instant. For he has come with Heaven's Help within
him, ready to lead him out of darkness into light at any time. The time he
chooses can be any time, for help is there, awaiting but his choice.
(T.25.III.4.1-5:1.6.1-4)*
(11:5) "For several minutes watch your mind and see, although your eyes are
closed, the senseless world you think is real."
*The reader no doubt remembers this form of instruction from the early lessons.
The next lesson explicates the premise of this statement: whether our eyes are
open or closed is irrelevant. As the world is nothing more than our projected
thoughts of separation and guilt, we can still be aware of it with closed eyes.*
(11:6) "Review the thoughts as well which are compatible with such a world, and
which you think are true."
*We review not just circumstances or relationships, but the thoughts of
specialness and guilt that are underneath them. After all, these thoughts <are>
the world we think we see.*
(11:7-8) "Then let them go, and sink below them to the holy place where they can
enter not. There is a door beneath them in your mind, which you could not
completely lock to hide what lies beyond."
*The door leads to the right mind, which forgiveness opens as the key to
happiness. It is the door we pass through with Jesus' help, opening up when are
able -- with Jesus beside us -- to look at the ego's world, both its thoughts
and their projection into form. These foolish thoughts of specialness have used
layers of guilt and hate to cover the holy place wherein is found the
compatible, right-minded thoughts that will lead us home.*
(12:1-3) "Seek for that door and find it. But before you try to open it, remind
yourself no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. And it is this request
you make today."
*We need to remember that Jesus will lead us through the door, even as the ego
tells us we will be destroyed and annihilated as we disappear into oblivion.
Thus we need this added reassurance that the consequences of passing through the
door are happy ones. As the earlier lesson says: "You think you are destroyed,
but you are saved." (W.PI.93.4.4) Passing through does mean the end of the ego,
but not the end of us, and we are motivated to seek and find the door by
realizing nothing here works. Absolutely nothing, for we will never find true
happiness, peace, or joy in this world. That is why Jesus asks us to trust the
One Who is our Teacher. As he reminds us, in a message that has already provided
comfort:
"Yet God can bring you there, if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit
through seeming terror, trusting Him not to abandon you and leave you there. For
it is not His purpose to frighten you, but only yours. You are severely tempted
to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear, but He would lead you safely through
and far beyond." (T.18.IX.3.7-9).
Once aware of the guide we had chosen to lead us through the circle of fear, we
shall not hesitate an instant longer to choose another Guide Who cannot fail to
help us reach the truth.*
(13:1) "Put out your hand, and see how easily the door swings open with your one
intent to go beyond it."
*In other words, there is nothing there. In the text, Jesus talks about sin
seeming to be a solid wall of granite, through which we can never pass. However,
with a different goal and teacher, the door of sin easily swings open. If fact,
as it does and we pass beyond it, we realize there was no door -- the door and
room we entered have disappeared, for in truth they never existed. Only in our
hallucinatory dreams of sin did they seem solid, a "reality" gently dispelled by
the Holy Spirit's reason:
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the
road to peace. No one who looks on it without the help of reason would try to
pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be
madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, because it is
an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."
(T-22.III.3:2-6).*
(13:2) "Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes, and you are
standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you
see."
*As well as understanding all things we see, we forget all things we once saw.
At this point, again, there is nothing to remember because the ego has
disappeared. The angels of forgiveness have cast away the darkened figures of
sin and judgment:
"Around you angels hover lovingly, to keep away all darkened thoughts of
sin, and keep the light where it has entered in. Your footprints lighten up the
world, for where you walk forgiveness gladly goes with you." (T-26.IX.7:1-2).*
(14:1-4) "You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit [ the Holy
Spirit ] Heaven sent you, that you might approach this door some day, and
through His aid slip effortlessly past it, to the light. Today that day has
come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son
remember his to Him."
*This recalls the lovely section we have already seen, "The Forgotten Song,"
that beautifully describes the memory that leads us back to the truth we never
really forgot. We have always been at home in God, merely dreaming of exile
(T-10.I.2:1):
"You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but in dreams, while safe
at home." (T-13.VII.17:6-7).*
(15:1) "Remember often that today should be a time of special gladness, and
refrain from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Salvation's time has
come."
*As we go though our day, Jesus asks us to be aware of our "dismal thoughts and
meaningless laments," and the special love veils we use to conceal them. It is
not until we identify these ego thoughts -- "loving" and hateful ones -- that
Jesus can help us let them go. Yet we cannot let go of something we do not think
is there; denial is hardly a spiritual practice. These lessons, therefore,
identify the dismal meaninglessness of our laments, so we may choose another
refrain to replace the ego's mournful chorus. Such choice, for example, is the
means for healing the psychotherapy patient:
"Healing occurs as a patient begins to hear the dirge he sings, and
questions its validity. Until he hears it, he cannot understand that it is he
who sings it to himself. To hear it is the first step in recovery. To question
it must then become his choice."(P.2.VI.1.5-8)*
(15:2-7) "Today is set by Heaven itself to be a time of grace for you and for
the world. If you forget this happy fact, remind yourself with this:
Today I seek and find all that I want.
My single purpose offers it to me.
No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."
*To state the oft-repeated guidance, what gives meaning to our practice is
learning how much we do not mean the words of the lesson, accepting that part of
us does not want the terrifying truth that will free us from our specialness.
Therefore, before we say and mean these words, we have first to be aware of the
ego's truth, needing Jesus to help us forgive these special thoughts that prefer
the ego to him. In other words, before truth can dawn on our minds, we must
forgive ourselves for pushing it away. Thus we come to learn the happy fact that
our pushing Jesus away had no effect: He went nowhere and, fortunately, neither
did we. Without an effect, the sin of separation is not a cause, and nothing
exists that is not causative. Therefore, sin does not exist and there is nothing
to forgive. This is the truth and, by choosing to forgive, we choose to seek
what we truly wish to find. Our single purpose ensures that we shall, for no one
can fail who seeks the truth.*
