There is a tendency to think the world can offer consolation and escape
from problems which its purpose is to KEEP. Why should this be? Because
it is a place where choice among illusions seems to be the ONLY choice.
And you are in control of outcomes of your choosing. Thus you think,
within the narrow band from birth to death, a little time is given you
to use for you alone; a time when everyone conflicts with you, but you
can choose which road will lead you out of conflict, and away from
difficulties which concern you not. Yet they ARE your concern. How, then,
can you escape from them by leaving them behind? What must go with you,
you will take with you whatever road you choose to walk along.

REAL choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All
its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no
choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world
was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the
different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is
but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will
lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they
seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All
of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before
the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The
choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes.

There is no choice where every end is sure. Perhaps you would prefer to
try them all, before you really learn they are but one. The roads this
world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come
when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. Men have
died on seeing this, because they saw no way except the pathways offered
by the world. And learning they led nowhere, lost their hope. And yet
this was the time they could have learned their greatest lesson. All
must reach this point, and go beyond it. It is true indeed there is no
choice at all within the world. But this is not the lesson in itself.
The lesson has a purpose, and in THIS you come to understand what it is
FOR.

Why would you seek to try another road, another person or another place,
when you have learned the way the lesson starts, but do not yet perceive
what it is for? Its purpose is the ANSWER to the search that all must
undertake who still believe there is another answer to be found. Learn
now, without despair, there is no hope of answer in the world. But do
not judge the lesson which is but BEGUN with this. Seek not another
signpost in the world which seems to point to still another road. No
longer look for hope where there is none. Make fast your learning NOW,
and understand you but waste time unless you go beyond what you have
learned to what is yet to learn. For from this lowest point will
learning lead to heights of happiness, in which you see the purpose of
the lesson shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp.

Who would be willing to be turned away from all the roadways of the
world, unless he understood their real futility? Is it not needful
that he should begin with this, to seek another way instead? For while
he sees a choice where there is none, what power of decision can he use?
The great release of power must begin with learning where it really has
a USE. And what decision has power if it be applied in situations
without choice?

The learning that the world can offer but one choice, no matter what its
form may be, is the beginning of acceptance that there is a REAL
alternative instead. To fight against this step is to defeat your
purpose here. You did not come to learn to find a road the world does
not contain. The search for different pathways in the world is but the
search for different forms of truth. And this would KEEP the truth from
being reached.

Think not that happiness is ever found by following a road AWAY from it.
This makes no sense, and CANNOT be the way. To you who seem to find this
course to be too difficult to learn, let me repeat that, to achieve a
goal, you must proceed in its direction, NOT away from it. And every
road that leads the other way will not advance the purpose to be found.
If THIS be difficult to understand, then IS this course impossible to
learn. But only then. For otherwise, it is a simple teaching in the
obvious.

There IS a choice which you have power to make when you have seen the
real alternatives. Until that point is reached you HAVE no choice, and
you can but decide how you would choose the better to deceive yourself
again. This course attempts to teach no more than that the power of
decision cannot lie in choosing different forms of what is still the
SAME illusion and the SAME mistake. All choices in the world depend on
this; you choose between your brother and yourself, and you will gain as
much as he will lose, and what you lose is what is given him. How
utterly opposed to truth is this, when what the lesson’s purpose is to
teach that what your brother loses YOU have lost, and what he gains is
what is given YOU.

He has not left His Thoughts! But you forgot His Presence, and
remembered not His love. No pathway in the world can lead to Him, nor
any worldly goal is one with His. What road in all the world will lead
within, when every road was made to separate the journey from the
purpose it MUST have unless it be but futile wandering? All roads that
lead away from what you are will lead you
to confusion and despair. Yet has He never left His Thoughts to die,
without their Source forever in themselves. He has not left His
Thoughts! He could no more depart from them than they could keep Him
out. In unity with Him do they abide, and in their Oneness both are kept
complete.

There IS no road that leads away from Him. A journey from YOURSELF does
not exist. How foolish and insane it is to think that there could be a
road with such an aim! Where could it go? And how could you be made to
travel on it, walking there without your own reality at one with you?
Forgive yourself your madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all
goal-less aims. They have no meaning. You can not escape from what you
are. For God IS merciful, and did not let His Son abandon Him. For what
He is, be thankful, for in that is your escape from madness and from
death. Nowhere but where He is can YOU be found. There IS no path that
does not lead to Him.