 We continue today with the manual for teachers. Number 11, how is peace possible in this world? This is a question everyone must ask. Certainly peace seems to be impossible here. Yet the Word of God promises other things that seem impossible, as well as this. His Word has promised peace. It has also promised that there is no death, that resurrection must occur, and that rebirth is man's inheritance. The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God's Word has promised that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be, but you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this. Again, we come to the question of judgment. This time, ask yourself whether your judgment or the Word of God is more likely to be true. For they say different things about the world, and things so opposite that it is pointless to try to reconcile them. God offers the world salvation. Your judgment would condemn it. God says there is no death. Your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God's Word assures you that He loves the world. Your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so. The text explains that the Holy Spirit is the answer to all problems you have made. These problems are not real, but that is meaningless to those who believe in them. And everyone believes in what he made, for it was made by his believing it. Into this strange and paradoxical situation, one without meaning and devoid of sense, yet out of which no way seems possible, God has sent His judgment to answer yours. Gently, His judgment substitutes for yours. And through this substitution is the ununderstandable made understandable. How is peace possible in this world? In your judgment, it is not possible and can never be possible. But in the judgment of God, which is reflected here, is only peace. Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped? It is not the world that makes peace seem possible. It is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has God's judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace? And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now belongs here because a thought of God has entered. What else but a thought of God turns hell to heaven merely by being what it is? The earth bows down before its gracious presence and it leans down in answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is no longer can peace be possible in this world but instead is not it impossible that peace be absent here? How many teachers of God are needed to save the world? The answer to this question is one. One holy, perfect teacher whose learning is complete suffices. This one, sanctified and redeemed, becomes the self who is the Son of God. He who is always Holy Spirit now no longer sees himself as a body or even as in a body. Therefore he is limitless. And being limitless, his thoughts are joined with God's forever and ever. His perception of himself is based upon God's judgment, not his own. Thus does he share God's will and bring his thoughts to still deluded minds. He is forever one because he is as God created him. He has accepted Christ and he is saved. Thus does the Son of Man become the Son of God. It is not really a change. It is a change of mind. Nothing external alters but everything internal now reflects only the love of God. God can no longer be feared for the mind sees no cause for punishment. God's teachers appear to be many for that is what is the world's need. Yet being joined in one purpose and one they share with God, how could they be separate from each other? What does it matter if they then appear in many forms? Their minds are one. Their joining is complete. And God works through them now as one for that is what they are. Why is the illusion of many necessary? Only because reality is not understandable to the deluded. Only very few can hear God's voice at all and even they cannot communicate his messages directly through the Spirit which gave them. They need a medium through which communication becomes possible to those who do not realize that they are Spirit. A body they can see, a voice they understand and listen to without the fear that truth would encounter in them. Do not forget that truth can come only where it is welcomed without fear. So do God's teachers need a body for their unity could not be recognized directly. Yet what makes God's teachers is their recognition of the proper purpose of the body. As they advance in their profession they become more and more certain that the body's function is but to let God's voice speak through it to human ears. And these ears will carry to the mind of the hearer messages that are not of this world and the mind will understand because of their source. From this understanding will come the recognition in this new teacher of God of what the body's purpose really is. The only use there really is for it. This lesson is enough to let the thought of unity come in and what is one is recognized as one. The teachers of God appear to share the illusion of separation but because of what they use the body for they do not believe in the illusion despite appearances. The central lesson is always this, that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack which is the same as sin and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak and being weak it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by and that is all. The mind makes this decision as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition. Yet the teacher of God does not make this decision alone. To do that would be to give the body another purpose from the one that keeps it holy. God's voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role just as it tells him what his function is. He does not suffer either in going or remaining. Sickness is now impossible to him. Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. God's teachers choose to look on dreams awhile. It is a conscious choice for they have learned that all choices are made consciously with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming, and yet surely theirs. What is the real meaning of sacrifice? Although in truth the term sacrifice is altogether meaningless, it does have a meaning in the world. Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it. Now its real meaning is a lesson. Like all lessons it is an illusion, for in reality there is nothing to learn. Yet this illusion must be replaced by a corrective device, another illusion that replaces the first so both can finally disappear. The first illusion which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold is that it is the sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion since this world itself is nothing more than that? It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. What can this sacrifice of nothing mean? It cannot mean that you have less because of it. There is no sacrifice in the world's terms that does not involve the body. Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice. Power, fame, money, physical pleasure, who is the quote hero to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body obscuring its identity and losing sight of what it really is. Once this confusion has occurred it becomes impossible for the mind to understand that all the quote pleasures of the world are nothing. But what a sacrifice and it is sacrifice indeed all this entails. Now has the mind condemned itself to seek without finding, to be forever dissatisfied and discontented, to know not what it really wants to find. Who can escape this self-condemnation? Only through God's word could this be possible. For self-condemnation is a decision about identity and no one doubts what he believes he is. He can doubt all things, but never this. God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughterhouse? No one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifices values would demand of him. To them he sacrifices all his peace. To them he sacrifices all his freedom. And to possess them he must sacrifice his hope of heaven and remembrance of his father's love. Who in his sane mind chooses nothing as a substitute for everything? What is the real meaning of sacrifice? It is the cost of believing in illusions. It is the price that must be paid for the denial of truth. There is no pleasure of the world that does not demand this. For otherwise the pleasure would be seen as pain and no one asks for pain if he recognizes it. It is the idea of sacrifice that makes him blind. He does not see what he is asking for. And so he seeks it in a thousand ways and in a thousand places each time believing it is there. And each time disappointed in the end. Seek but do not find remains this world's stern decree. And no one who pursues the world's goals can do otherwise. You may believe this course requires sacrifice of all you really hold dear. In one sense this is true for you hold dear the things that crucify God's son. And it is the course's aim to set him free. But do not be mistaken about what sacrifice means. It always means the giving up of what you want. And what, O Teacher of God, is it that you want? You have been called by God and you have answered. Would you now sacrifice that call? Few have heard it as yet and they can but turn to you. There is no other hope in all the world that they can trust. There is no other voice in all the world that echoes God's. If you would sacrifice the truth they stay in hell. And if they stay you will remain with them. Do not forget that sacrifice is total. There are no half sacrifices. You cannot give up heaven partially. You cannot be a little bit in hell. The Word of God has no exceptions. It is this that makes it holy and beyond the world. It is its holiness that points to God. It is its holiness that makes you safe. It is denied if you attack any brother for anything. For it is here the split with God occurs. A split that is impossible. A split that cannot happen. Yet a split in which you surely will believe because you have set up a situation that is impossible. And in this situation the impossible can seem to happen. It seems to happen at the quote sacrifice of truth. Teacher of God do not forget the meaning of sacrifice and remember what each decision you make must mean in terms of cost. Decide for God and everything is given you at no cost at all. Decide against him and you choose nothing at the expense of the awareness of everything. What would you teach? Remember only what you would learn. For it is here that your concern should be. Atonement is for you. Your learning claims it and your learning gives it. The world contains it not. But learn this course and it is yours. God holds out his word to you for he has need of teachers. What other way is there to save his son?