PART I
LESSON 188.
The peace of God is shining in me now.
W-188.1. Why wait for Heaven? 2 Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. 3 The light is in them now. 4 Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. 5 Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. 6 The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. 7 It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. 8 It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home.
W-188.2. This light can not be lost. 2 Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? 3 It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. 4 Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? 5 It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. 6 There is no sight, be it of dreams or from a truer Source, that is not but the shadow of the seen through inward vision. 7 There perception starts, and there it ends. 8 It has no source but this.
W-188.3. The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. 2 It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever. 3 What it gives must be eternal. 4 It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. 5 It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes by. 6 All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and you who have received.
W-188.4. The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. 2 From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. 3 To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. 4 And in His blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world.
W-188.5. The peace of God can never be contained. 2 Who recognizes it within himself must give it. 3 And the means for giving it are in his understanding. 4 He forgives because he recognized the truth in him. 5 The peace of God is shining in you now, and in all living things. 6 In quietness is it acknowledged universally. 7 For what your inward vision looks upon is your perception of the universe.
W-188.6. Sit quietly and close your eyes. 2 The light within you is sufficient. 3 It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you. 4 Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. 5 They know the way. 6 For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Himself.
W-188.7. These thoughts you think with Him. 2 They recognize their home. 3 And they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are One. 4 God's peace is shining on them, but they must remain with you as well, for they were born within your mind, as yours was born in God's. 5 They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return.
W-188.8. They heed your Father's Voice when you refuse to listen. 2 And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows. 3 They remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live. 4 For as the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.
W-188.9. We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. 2 We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. 3 We will not let them stray. 4 We let the light within our minds direct them to come home. 5 We have betrayed them, ordering that they depart from us. 6 But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. 7 We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance.
W-188.10. Thus are our minds restored with them, and we acknowledge that the peace of God still shines in us, and from us to all living things that share our life. 2 We will forgive them all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us. 3 For it is we who make the world as we would have it. 4 Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. 5 And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we say:
6 The peace of God is shining in me now.
7 Let all things shine upon me in that peace, And let me bless them with the light in me.