LESSON 188 The peace of God is shining in me now.

1. 1Why wait for Heaven? 2Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. 3The light is in them now. 4Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. 5Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. 6The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. 7It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. 8It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home.

2. 1This light can not be lost. 2Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? 3It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which prove it is not there become ridiculous. 4Who can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? 5It is not difficult to look within, for there all vision starts. 6There is no sight, be it of dreams or from a truer Source, that is not but the shadow of the seen through inward vision. 7There perception starts, and there it ends. 8It has no source but this.

3. 1The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around the world. 2It pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that remains forever and forever. 3What it gives must be eternal. 4It removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless. 5It brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes by. 6All of its gifts are given eve­ryone, and everyone unites in giving thanks to you who give, and you who have received.

4. 1The shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten, and the world restores the memory to you as well. 2From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. 3To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. 4And in His blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world.

5. 1The peace of God can never be contained. 2Who recognizes it within himself must give it. 3And the means for giving it are in his understanding. 4He forgives because he recognized the truth in him. 5The peace of God is shining in you now, and in all living things. 6In quietness is it acknowledged universally. 7For what your inward vision looks upon is your perception of the universe.

6. 1Sit quietly and close your eyes. 2The light within you is sufficient. 3It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you. 4Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. 5They know the way. 6For honest thoughts, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy messengers of God Himself.

7. 1These thoughts you think with Him. 2They recognize their home. 3And they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are one. 4God’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. 5They lead you back to peace, from where they came but to remind you how you must return.

8. 1They heed your Father’s Voice when you refuse to listen. 2And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you are, instead of fantasies and shadows. 3They remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live. 4For as the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.

9. 1We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. 2We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. 3We will not let them stray. 4We let the light within our minds direct them to come home. 5We have betrayed them, ordering that they depart from us. 6But now we call them back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. 7We restore to them the holiness of their inheritance.

10. 1Thus 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. 2We will forgive them all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us. 3For it is we who make the world as we would have it. 4Now we choose that it be innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. 5And we lay our saving blessing on it, as we say:

6The peace of God is shining in me now.

7Let all things shine upon me in that peace,

And let me bless them with the light in me.