I will be still an instant and go home.
1. This world in which you seem to live is not your home.
²And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true.
³The memory of your true Home haunts you constantly, as if there were a place that calls you to return, although you do not recognize the Voice, nor what exactly It reminds you of.
⁴For you still feel like a stranger here, someone who has come from a place completely unknown.
⁵It is not something specific that allows you to state with certainty that you are an exile here.
⁶It is only a persistent feeling; at times no more than a faint twinge, at other times just a fleeting memory that you immediately dismiss, but which will surely return again to your mind.
2. There is no one who does not know what we are talking about.
²Yet some will try to cover their suffering by entertaining themselves with games to pass the time and keep their sadness away.
³Others will deny they are sad, and will not acknowledge at all that they are, in fact, swallowing back their tears.
⁴And others will claim that what we are speaking of is an illusion, and should be regarded as no more than a dream.
⁵But who could, in all honesty, without defensiveness or self-deception, declare that they do not know what we are referring to?
3. Today we speak for everyone who wanders through this world, for he is not at home here.
²He goes from place to place in an endless search, chasing in the dark what he cannot find, without recognizing what it is he seeks.
³He builds himself a thousand homes, but none contents his restless mind.
⁴He does not understand that he builds them all in vain.
⁵The Home he seeks cannot be built by him.
⁶There is no substitute for Heaven.
⁷Everything he ever made has turned to hell.
4. You may believe that what you want to rediscover is the home of your childhood.
²But the childhood of your body and the place that once received it are now a memory so distorted that what you retain is nothing but an image of a past that never was.
³Yet within you there is a Child who longs for His Father’s House, for He knows He is a stranger here.I
⁴This Childhood is eternal, and Its Innocence will never fade.
⁵Wherever this Child goes is holy ground.II
⁶His Holiness is what lights up Heaven and brings to earth the pure reflection of the Light that shines Above, where earth and Heaven join as one.
5. It is this Child within you Whom your Father knows as His Own Son.
²It is this Child Who knows His Father.
³He longs so deeply and without cease to return to His Home that His Voice pleads with you to let Him rest a while.
⁴He asks for no more than just a moment’s respite, only a brief interval in which to breathe the holy air that fills His Father’s House.
⁵You too are His Home.
⁶He wants to return.
⁷But give Him just a little time, so He may be Himself in the peace that is His Home, and rest in silence, in peace and in Love.
6. This Child needs your protection.
²He is very far from Home.
³He is so small that it seems so easy to still His Voice and silence Him.
⁴For His call for help is scarcely heard amidst the deafening sounds and clashing, angry noise of the world.
⁵Yet He knows that in you still resides His sure protection.
⁶And you will not fail Him.
⁷He will return to His Home, and you will go with Him.
7. This Child is your defenselessness and your strength.III
²He trusts in you.
³He came because He knew you would not fail Him.
⁴He speaks to you constantly of His Home in gentle whispers.
⁵For He wants to take you with Him back to where He may remain, so He need not return to a place that is not His own, where He lives as a stranger among foreign thoughts.
⁶His patience is unlimited.
⁷He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace with you to where He belongs, and you with Him.
8. When you are still an instant, when the world recedes and your restless mind ceases to chase after valueless thoughts, then you will hear His Voice.
²He calls to you in such a tender way that you will no longer resist Him.
³In that very moment He will take you to His Home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, in silence and in peace, beyond all words, free of all doubt and fear, with the sublime certainty that at last you are at Home.
9. Rest with Him today often throughout the day.
²For He chose to become a little Child, that you might learn from Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, bringing only messages of Love to those who think him to be their enemy.
³With the Power of Heaven in His hands, He calls them friends, and gives them His strength so they may see He wants to be their Friend.
⁴He asks only that they protect Him, for His Home is far away, and He does not want to return alone.
10. Christ is reborn as a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home.
²For he must learn that what he seeks to guard is none other than this Child, Who comes defenseless, and by Whom defenselessness is protected.
³Return home with Him today, from time to time.
⁴You are as much a stranger to this place as He.
11. Take a moment today to lay aside your useless shield, and to set down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy who does not exist.IV
²Christ has called you friend and brother.
³He has even come to you to ask for help, that you allow Him to return whole and complete to His Home.
⁴He has come just as a little Child would come, begging his father to love and protect him.
⁵He rules the universe, and yet He begs you constantly to come with Him and to stop making illusions your gods.
12. You have not lost your Innocence.
²This is what you so deeply long for.
³This is what your heart desires.
⁴This is the Voice you hear and the Call that cannot be denied.
⁵This holy Child is still with you.
⁶His Home is yours.
⁷Today He offers you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of war you made.
⁸Now the way is open, and at last the journey’s end is clearly seen.
⁹Be still an instant, go home with Him, and rest in peace a while.
I Luke 15:18–20 “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against God and against you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.’ So he set out to return to his father’s house. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and, deeply moved, ran to meet him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.”
John 14:2 “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
II Exodus 3:5 “Then He said, ‘Do not come any closer. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’”
III This beautiful Lesson describes in depth your true identity: what you are, what your brothers are, and that in which you may place your trust without reservation. Now you not only recognize Who you are, but also understand the root of that uneasiness and essential discomfort that have always accompanied you in a world that, deep down, has never felt entirely familiar.
“Human being ” does not designate what you are, but what you believe yourself to be, for you are not human. You belong to another world: the Kingdom of God of which Jesus speaks to you and points out as something present within you—far beyond this world, and yet, surprisingly near—for that Kingdom is your true essence.
The image of a little innocent child—the Christ in you—clothed with the Power of God and protected by his very defenselessness, is something you can surely understand and with which you are called to identify. That is your reality. That is what you are. And that is the only thing in which you can—and must—place your trust. The ideas you cherish about your tendency to sin are nothing but a form of arrogance. How could you have altered what God created immaculate?
Realize that guilt is always experienced in the present, even though it refers to something you believe happened in the past. That “small” detail alone should make you suspect that something does not fit. That guilt itself shows that you are still willing to assume an inheritance of your own, and not the one that comes from God.
Forget the past. The only thing that keeps you tied to it is your decision to make it present. Be born again right now and choose, here and now, what you wish to be. That is perfectly within your reach if you so decide. Exercise it.
The strength that awakens in your soul through your own defenselessness is as evident as the fear provoked by your defenses. Do not defend yourself, for you have no enemy but your own guilty imagination. You can never lose what truly belongs to you, just as you can never possess what is not real. What you are not simply does not exist. Nor is it possible that you suffer any harm or that anything in you be affected, for you are eternally as God created you. And that is His unchangeable Will. Yet remember, you are free to believe any foolishness you choose—though your heart, again and again, will remind you of what you truly need to remember. Use your will now to choose rightly.
For now, while you still perceive yourself as a person, you have no choice but to believe this, since the idea you have of yourself prevents you from knowing it directly. You will have to settle for believing it; at this stage there is no alternative. Belief and knowledge are incompatible states, just as love and fear, or will and helplessness, are. Reality cannot coexist with illusion, and that is self-evident. Yet at least now you understand that holding noble beliefs aligned with truth is the highest you can aspire to in this world. Now you know.
And yet even the most exalted belief will feel uncomfortable to you, because to believe is to force your mind to do something that is not natural to it. Believing is, in a sense, a transgression against your holy mind, which is innocent, immaculate, and virginal. That is why, in the deepest part of you, your mind will resist even the most sacred belief. The time will come when you will no longer be able to bear even the idea of believing in God—for you were not created to believe in Him, but to know Him.
Still, it is also true that one day you will lose interest in playing a fictitious role and will be fully willing to leave behind your illusory identity in order to assume the Will of God as your own. To walk that path without fear, it is essential to understand that nothing is being taken from you, nor are you losing anything real—you are simply freeing yourself from the limitations you yourself have imposed. If you do not see it that way, you can only interpret the process as a sacrifice.
Child of God! Look carefully at what you have made of yourself. In the infinite vastness of your Father—which is what you truly are—you have drawn a tiny circle. It is so small it can barely be perceived; it seems only a dot. Its dimension is so minuscule that it marks off an insignificant portion of power, knowledge, and love. It is so incredibly limited that it goes unnoticed amid the vastness of the Real. That circle defines your capacities, your aspirations, your limits. That is the identity you call by your name, and that is exactly what you will lose when you open your mind to the Truth: that self-imposed limit, and nothing more.
Within that little circle you keep your possessions, your fears, your small treasures. There lie hidden guilt, sin, and fear of death. That is the illusory world you are asked to abandon—to gain, in exchange, the totality. Look well at what we are speaking of. From Heaven, this is how you are seen: as a starving guest before a splendid banquet, weakened for not opening your eyes to what lies before you; as one who suffocates by refusing to breathe; as the child trembling with fear, believing he has destroyed the universe merely by turning off the light. And still, you find it hard to let go of your little kingdom, your tiny self, your need to be right.
Take a breath. Take the hand of that Child and return, even for a moment, to your Father’s house. The day will come when you recognize that you never truly left it—except in dreams.
IV John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”