The quiet answer

by Hugh Prather.Garden City, NY : Doubleday (Dolphin), 1982.

Meditations and exercises based on Hugh Prather’s experience with his course in miracles.

TO THE READER:

Nothing in this book is meant to disturb you. Mere controversy is never truly helpful. But love is. If you find yourself in disagreement with something I have said, please laugh happily and forgive me my ignorance. God has not finished with me yet.

My purpose in writing this book is to attempt to provide you with a number of immediate and practical ways to return to God’s peace. It is therefore not necessary to begin at the begin­ning and read straight through. You may prefer to work from the Table of Contents or simply open the pages at random.

Although the purpose of this book is peace, if peace is not the alternative you seek, all you need do is ask yourself what you do want. The more specific you are, the more quickly you will free yourself, because, above all else, the ego you have made does not want you to concentrate. If you see clearly the gift it is offering you, you simply will not want it. That is why you need never fear your desires or run from your fantasies.

Fear is a distraction. It is mental turmoil. It does not focus. It does not even know exactly what it fears. Fear is pure avoidance without direction. Calmness dispels fear by restoring the willingness to look. Through either direct or gradual means, the thoughts and exercises in this book urge you to look, to be honest, to be calm, so that the grounds for happiness can be clearly seen. And these grounds will never be comparative. True gratitude is not based on the perception that others have less or suffer more. It is the recognition that spirit instead of flesh holds all that is of value and that there is no end to spirit. Because love does exist, you are free.

Hugh Prather
March 8,1981
Santa Fe, New Mexico