Peace does not exist.

Would You Like To Create It?
By Jon Mundy

I sat down to write this article on peace. I needed to name the file so I typed in P-E-A-C-E and hit the enter key. Immediately it flashed up on screen, Peace does not exist. Would you like to create it? "Yes" or "Cancel." I chose yes. (I e-mailed this story to Reader's Digest and they called and said they were going to use it.)

The Four Obstacles to Peace
A Course in Miracles describes four obstacles to peace. On the very first page of the Course we are told that the purpose of the Course is to help us remove the blocks to the awareness of love's presence. None of these blocks or obstacles are solid. They can be removed by changing one's mind. In and of themselves "these obstacles" are nothing, but they seem to be very big and very real -- because we make them real.

1. The first obstacle that peace must flow across is our desire to get rid of it.

The first obstacle that peace must flow across is your desire to get rid of it.
For it cannot extend unless you keep it.
You are the center from which it radiates outward, to call the others in.
You are its home; its tranquil dwelling place from which it gently reaches out, but never leaving you.
-- T-19. A. 1:1-4

In order to know peace we must be peace. In order to give our peace to others we must be at peace. Having peace is reciprocal -- it comes to us "as" we give it away.

The ego by definition is a judge. We judge by defining ourselves as "better" or "worse" than others. Being filled with "judgment" it is easy to find "evil doers" in the world. Seek out peace and what do you find? Seek out evil and what do you find? Finding evil and then seeking to destroy it, do we not ourselves "become" evil. If we find evil we can then find justification for murder. The Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill." It doesn't say, "Thou shalt not kill except. . . " Do you believe for one single instant that God who loves all his children equally, supports our attacks on each other. God by definition is Love. Love by definition is God. God does not hate. God does not kill.

The world's evil is a witness to your state of mind;
the outside picture of an inward condition of evil.
-- ACIM T-21.in.1:5

Seeking evil instead of peace, it is not surprising that what we give others is not out peace but our anger -- our attack thoughts. I looked up the word peace in the dictionary and one of it's definitions said it was, "the interval between fighting or a time out between wars". That's the ego's definition of peace. The ego is always at war.

The ego by definition lives by the laws of chaos and can never be at peace. Finding trouble with our neighbors or with the world at large is easy to do. While shopping for groceries one day, I heard a man complaining rather loudly about the high cost of different kinds of juice. He said he was mad as hell and he wanted to let the other shoppers know about his discomfort. It was the politicians, he said who were responsible for the high cost of juice.

We so easily throw our peace away, one little perturbation, one little disruption, and z-o-o-m our peace is out the window. Someone says something that doesn't sit quite right and instantly we are on the attack. Someone cuts you off in traffic and z-o-o-m, any peace of mind you might have had is gone. Your mate makes a suggestion about changing some aspect of your personality and z-o-o-m your peace is gone. How can we know peace when we throw it away so easily?

The Attraction of Guilt
Guilt is the feeling we experience in relation to sin. Sin is the belief in the reality of our separations from God. Guilt demands punishment. Rather than looking at our own guilt, we project it in our attack on others. If I see good within, I will find good in you. If I see evil within, I will find evil in you. Any perception which does not reflect the Oneness of God must be a delusion.

As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not.
For love contains the end of guilt.
-- ACIM, T-19. A. i.. 10:1-4.

In order to be at peace, we must relinquish our desire to attack.

2. The second obstacle that peace must flow across, and closely related to the first is the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers.

Believing in separation we see other bodies as the depository of evil. Thus we believe in "evil doers." As I watched our country attack Iraq I kept thinking of the following sentences from the Course.

If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself.
You cannot know your brother when you attack him.
Attack is always made upon a stranger.
You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him, and so you cannot know him.
It is because you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him.
-- ACIM T-3, III, 7:1-5

The body in and of itself is neutral and brings us neither peace nor turmoil, neither joy nor pain. The body is a means and not an end. It's only purpose is the purpose we give it. The ego seeks salvation in the body. Traditional Christianity teaches the resurrection of the body; on the other extreme, atheists have a growing interest in cryogenics. (I can well imagine that there are those among us who would prefer not to come back to our present body.) We are not at peace if we see ourselves as bodies only. Peace is of the mind. Jesus knew he was not a body and pain held no attraction for him. This idea from the course is very different than that of traditional Christianity which has Jesus suffering on a cross.

3. The third obstacle (that peace must flow across) is the attraction of death.

It was Sigmund Freud who first discussed Thanatos and the compelling attraction of death. The ego, working out of fear, engages in backward thinking thus -- what seems to be the fear of death is its attraction.

Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they call to it,
and bid it come to save them from communication.
-- ACIM, T-19. IV (C) 7:1

How attracted are we to look at accidents; to news of war, crime, violence, and disasters? What better demonstrates that we are separate from God than the existence of the body. What better demonstration that we are out of favor with God, than mortality and death? The ego tells us that death is God's punishment of us, reinforcing our belief in guilt and fear.

As guilt has no hold except on those who are attracted to it, so death has no attraction when peace has come. If we are at peace how could we want anything more? What is all encompassing can have no opposite. Life is all encompassing. Therefore, there is no opposite to Life. There is no death. Spirit fears no end, for there is no end for spirit. The only thing which is ever lost is form. Who we are in truth can never die.

4. The fourth obstacle (that peace must flow across) is the fear of God.

Overcoming our fear of death -- all there is, is Life and God is Life. Jesus never talks about the fear of God. As we lose our fear of death, we remember our Father in Heaven. To remember God, is to remember everything. It is to remember the Creator, the Source of Life, the Father of the Universe and of the Universe of Universes, and of everything that lies beyond them.

Yielding To Love

Every obstacle to peace is overcome by a simple decision. It just requires a little willingness to let littleness -- to let "the ego" and our need for offensiveness and defensiveness -- go.

Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way;
the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so fear is gone.
-- ACIM, T-19. (D) 5.1

Martin Luther told a story about two goats that met on a log over a deep stream. They could not go back; to fight would have meant disaster for both as they would surely lose their balance and fall off the log. After a short parlay, one of them laid down and the other stepped over him to safety. Then the first arose and likewise proceeded to a place of safety, and so no harm was done.

Attack must yield to love. Fear must yield to love. Yielding is not a difficult matter. You just let go. Relinquish our attraction to guilt and fear and the limited view of ourselves as bodies only, we are carried into peace. To know peace is to know God.

Peace Gives A Transpersonal Perspective
In the section of the Course entitled Above The Battleground we read.
Be lifted up, and from a higher place look down upon it.
From there will your perspective be quite different.
Here in the midst of it, it does seem real.
Here you have chosen to be part of it. Here murder is your choice.
Yet from above, the choice is miracles instead of murder.
-- ACIM, T-23. IV. 4:7-12

In perfect peace there is no difference between our will and that of God's. There is no conflict when we think with God. We thus see grace and beauty.

The absence of perfect peace means but one thing;
You think you do not will for God's Son what his Father wills for him.
-- ACIM, T-14, XI, 5:4

Most everyone has had the experience of taking off in an airplane on a cloudy day. After a time of climbing, suddenly you break through the clouds and you can see bright blue sky and beautiful white clouds below. In my first year of seminary, I took a course on Eastern Religions. One day our professor said he was going to climb Mt. Baldy, a nearby 10,000 ft. mountain, and he invited whoever was interested to join him. Mt. Baldy overlooks the San Bernardino Valley in Southern California. When we got to the top of the mountain and looked back towards Los Angeles we could see nothing but smog in the valley below. Pointing downward the professor said, All is Maya. I had, at that moment a new insight into what this Hindu philosophy means when it says the world is an illusion. Down there under all that smog there was a world filled with much delusion, illusion and confusion. Where we were, it was a sunny day.

When we are at peace, the sky is always blue, even when clouds hide the light of the sun. Above it all is the Peace of God which is our True Reality. When you are at peace, even though the world may be crazy, you know there is blue sky. Heaven and peace prevails over all of the pettiness of man.

Peace Must Begin In Me
When a man finds no peace within himself,
it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
-- French Saying

It is only within ourselves that peace is ever found and maintained. World peace begins at home -- in my heart. How easily the gates of heaven open, when they open from within. Peace begins as we look out upon the world and bless it rather than condemn it. As we give love so do we find love. As we give peace so do we find peace.

The solution to our problem is no more complicated a matter than it was for those two goats. It just requires a little willingness to yield to love. Once that is done the other can go their way in peace as well, happy in the knowledge that the way was made easier for another.

Despite what the world would teach, there is no need for fear and our increasing defensiveness and projection. When we are in love we have no fear. When we are afraid we do not see love. We are always choosing between love and fear. In every situation, regardless of what happens, the only truly happy choice is love. When we are not afraid, we see love -- we extend love and promote peace. Peace begins with me. There is nothing and no one any of us need fear, be jealous of or have any hatred for. To know this is to be at peace.

God is peace, His name is peace, and all is bound together in peace.
- Zohar: Leviticus, 10b

To be at peace is to know God. Let the fear of God be lifted.
Look upon the face of Christ and join Him in His perfect vision.
It will be given you to see your brother's worth when all you want for him is peace.
And what you want for him you will receive.
-- ACIM, T-20. V. 3:5

Peace is stronger than war because it heals.
War is division, not increase. No one gains from strife.
-- ACIM T-5. II. 7:8-10

Love and Peace Now and Forever,