1. It has been said that there is a kind of peace that is not of this world. 2How is it recognized? 3How is it found? 4And being found, how can it be retained? 5Let us consider each of these questions separately, for each reflects a different step along the way.
2. First, how can the peace of God be recognized? 2God’s peace is recognized at first by just one thing; in every way it is totally unlike all previous experiences. 3It calls to mind nothing that went before. 4It brings with it no past associations. 5It is a new thing entirely. 6There is a contrast, yes, between this thing and all the past. 7But strangely, it is not a contrast of true differences. 8The past just slips away, and in its place is everlasting quiet. 9Only that. 10The contrast first perceived has merely gone. 11Quiet has reached to cover everything.
3. How is this quiet found? 2No one can fail to find it who but seeks out its conditions. 3God’s peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists. 4Who sees anger as justified in any way or any circumstance proclaims that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it cannot exist. 5In this condition, peace cannot be found. 6Therefore, forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God. 7More than this, given forgiveness there must be peace. 8For what except attack will lead to war? 9And what but peace is opposite to war? 10Here the initial contrast stands out clear and apparent. 11Yet when peace is found, the war is meaningless. 12And it is conflict now that is perceived as nonexistent and unreal.
4. How is the peace of God retained, once it is found? 2Returning anger, in whatever form, will drop the heavy curtain once again, and the belief that peace cannot exist will certainly return. 3War is again accepted as the one reality. 4Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you do not recognize that you have picked it up again. 5But you will learn, as you remember even faintly now what happiness was yours without it, that you must have taken it again as your defense. 6Stop for a moment now and think of this: Is conflict what you want, or is God’s peace the better choice? 7Which gives you more? 8A tranquil mind is not a little gift. 9Would you not rather live than choose to die?
5. Living is joy, but death can only weep. 2You see in death escape from what you made. 3But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. 4Death cannot be escape, because it is not life in which the problem lies. 5Life has no opposite, for it is God. 6Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life. 7Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real. 8In this one sentence is our course explained. 9In this one sentence is our practicing given its one direction. 10And in this one sentence is the Holy Spirit’s whole curriculum specified exactly as it is.
6. What is the peace of God? 2No more than this; the simple understanding that His Will is wholly without opposite. 3There is no thought that contradicts His Will, yet can be true. 4The contrast between His Will and yours but seemed to be reality. 5In truth there was no conflict, for His Will is yours. 6Now is the mighty Will of God Himself His gift to you. 7He does not seek to keep it for Himself. 8Why would you seek to keep your tiny frail imaginings apart from Him? 9The Will of God is One and all there is. 10This is your heritage. 11The universe beyond the sun and stars, and all the thoughts of which you can conceive, belongs to you. 12God’s peace is the condition for His Will. 13Attain His peace, and you remember Him.