Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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36 The ego is certain that love is dangerous, and this is always its
central teaching. It never puts it this way; on the contrary, everyone
who believes that the ego is salvation is intensely engaged in the
search for love. Yet the ego, though encouraging the search very
actively, makes one proviso—do not find it. Its dictates, then, can be
summed up simply as, “Seek and do not find.” This is the one promise
the ego holds out to you and the one promise it will keep. For the ego
pursues its goal with fanatic insistence, and its reality testing,
though severely impaired, is completely consistent.
37 The search which the ego undertakes is therefore bound to be
defeated. And since it also teaches that it is your identification,
its guidance leads you to a journey which must end in perceived
self-defeat. For the ego cannot love, and in its frantic search for
love, it is seeking what it is afraid to find. The search is
inevitable because the ego is part of your mind, and because of its
source, the ego is not wholly split off, or it could not be believed at
all. For it is your mind that believes in it and gives existence to
it. Yet it is also your mind that has the power to deny the ego’s
existence, and you will surely do so when you realize exactly what the
journey is on which the ego sets you.
38 It is surely obvious that no one wants to find what would utterly
defeat him. Being unable to love, the ego would be totally inadequate in
love’s presence, for it could not respond at all. You would have to
abandon the ego’s guidance, for it would be quite apparent that it had
not taught you the response pattern you need. The ego will therefore
distort love and teach you that love calls forth the responses which
the ego can teach. Follow its teaching, then, and you will search
for love but will not recognize it.
39 Do you realize that the ego must set you on a journey which cannot
but lead to a sense of futility and depression? To seek and not to
find is hardly joyous. Is this the promise you would keep? The Holy
Spirit offers you another promise, and one that will lead to joy. For
His promise is always, “Seek and you will find,” and under His
guidance you cannot be defeated. His is the journey to
accomplishment, and the goal He sets before you He will give you.
For He will never deceive God’s Son, whom He loves with the love of the
Father.
40 You will undertake a journey because you are not at home in this
world. And you will search for your home whether you know where it is
or not. If you believe it is outside yourself, the search will be
futile, for you will be seeking it where it is not. You do not know how
to look within yourself, for you do not believe your home is there.
Yet the Holy Spirit knows it for you, and He will guide you to your
home because that is His mission. As He fulfills His mission, He will
teach you yours, for your mission is the same as His. By guiding your
brothers home, you are but following Him.
41 Behold the Guide your Father gave you that you might learn you have
eternal life. For death is not your Father’s Will nor yours, and
whatever is true is the Will of the Father. You pay no price for life,
for that was given you, but you do pay a price for death, and a very
heavy one. If death is your treasure, you will sell everything else to
purchase it. And you will believe that you have purchased it because
you have sold everything else. Yet you cannot sell the Kingdom of
Heaven. Your inheritance can neither be bought nor sold. There can
be no disinherited parts of the Sonship, for God is whole, and all His
extensions are like Him.
42 The Atonement was not the price of our wholeness, but it was the
price of your awareness of your wholeness. For what you chose to
“sell” had to be kept for you since you could not “buy” it back. Yet
you must invest in it, not with money but with your spirit. For
Spirit is will, and will is the “price” of the Kingdom. Your
inheritance awaits only the recognition that you have been redeemed.
The Holy Spirit guides you into life eternal, but you must relinquish
your investment in death, or you will not see life though it is all
around you.