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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.