LESSON 200         There is no peace except the peace of God. 1 Seek you no further. 2You will not find peace except the peace of God. 3Accept this fact, and save yourself the agony of yet more bitter disappointments, bleak despair, and sense of icy hopeless ness and doubt. 4Seek you no further. 5There is nothing else for you to find except the peace of God, unless you seek for misery and pain. 2 This is the final point to which each one must come at last, to lay aside all hope of finding happiness where there is none; of being saved by what can only hurt; of making peace of chaos, joy of pain, and Heaven out of hell. 2Attempt no more to win through losing, nor to die to live. 3You cannot but be asking for defeat. 3 Yet you can ask as easily for love, for happiness, and for eter nal life in peace that has no ending. 2Ask for this, and you can only win. 3To ask for what you have already must succeed. 4To ask that what is false be true can only fail. 5Forgive yourself for vain imaginings, and seek no longer what you cannot find. 6For what could be more foolish than to seek and seek and seek again for hell, when you have but to look with open eyes to find that Heaven lies before you, through a door that opens easily to wel come you? 4 Come home. 2You have not found your happiness in foreign places and in alien forms that have no meaning to you, though you sought to make them meaningful. 3This world is not where you belong. 4You are a stranger here. 5But it is given you to find the means whereby the world no longer seems to be a prison house or jail for anyone. 5 Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. 2But you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape. 3You will be bound till all the world is seen by you as blessed, and everyone made free of your mistakes and honored as he is. 4You made him not; no more your self. 5And as you free the one, the other is accepted as he is. 6 What does forgiveness do? 2In truth it has no function, and does nothing. 3For it is unknown in Heaven. 4It is only hell where it is needed, and where it must serve a mighty function. 5Is not the escape of God's beloved Son from evil dreams that he imagines, 1 yet believes are true, a worthy purpose? 6Who could hope for more, while there appears to be a choice to make between success and failure; love and fear? 7. There is no peace except the peace of God, because He has one Son who cannot make a world in opposition to God's Will and to his own, which is the same as His. 2What could he hope to find in such a world? 3It cannot have reality, because it never was cre ated. 4Is it here that he would seek for peace? 5Or must he see that, as he looks on it, the world can but deceive? 6Yet can he learn to look on it another way, and find the peace of God. 8. Peace is the bridge that everyone will cross, to leave this world behind. 2But peace begins within the world perceived as differ ent, and leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond. 3Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic, vain pursuits, and meaningless en deavors. 4Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God. 9. Let us not lose our way again today. 2We go to Heaven, and the path is straight. 3Only if we attempt to wander can there be delay, and needless wasted time on thorny byways. 4God alone is sure, and He will guide our footsteps. 5He will not desert His Son in need, nor let him stray forever from his home. 6The Father calls; the Son will hear. 7And that is all there is to what appears to be a world apart from God, where bodies have reality. 10. Now is there silence. 2Seek no further. 3You have come to where the road is carpeted with leaves of false desires, fallen from the trees of hopelessness you sought before. 4Now are they underfoot. 5And you look up and on toward Heaven, with the body's eyes but serving for an instant longer now. 6Peace is al ready recognized at last, and you can feel its soft embrace sur round your heart and mind with comfort and with love. 11. Today we seek no idols. 2Peace can not be found in them. 3The peace of God is ours, and only this will we accept and want. 4Peace be to us today. 5For we have found a simple, happy way to leave the world of ambiguity, and to replace our shifting goals and solitary dreams with single purpose and companionship. 6For peace is union, if it be of God. 7We seek no further. 8We are close to home, and draw still nearer every time we say: 9There is no peace except the peace of God, And I am glad and thankful it is so.