IV. The Quiet Answer

T-27.IV.1. In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved. ² In conflict there can be no answer and no resolution, for its purpose is to make no resolution possible, and to ensure no answer will be plain. ³ A problem set in conflict has no answer, for it is seen in different ways. ⁴ And what would be an answer from one point of view is not an answer in another light. ⁵ You are in conflict. ⁶ Thus it must be clear you cannot answer anything at all, for conflict has no limited effects. ⁷ Yet if God gave an answer there must be a way in which your problems are resolved, for what He wills already has been done.

T-27.IV.2. Thus it must be that time is not involved and every problem can be answered now. ² Yet it must also be that, in your state of mind, solution is impossible. ³ Therefore, God must have given you a way of reaching to another state of mind in which the answer is already there. ⁴ Such is the holy instant. ⁵ It is here that all your problems should be brought and left. ⁶ Here they belong, for here their answer is. ⁷ And where its answer is, a problem must be simple and be easily resolved. ⁸ It must be pointless to attempt to solve a problem where the answer cannot be. ⁹ Yet just as surely it must be resolved, if it is brought to where the answer is.

T-27.IV.3. Attempt to solve no problems but within the holy instant's surety. ² For there the problem will be answered and resolved. ³ Outside there will be no solution, for there is no answer there that could be found. ⁴ Nowhere outside a single, simple question is ever asked. ⁵ The world can only ask a double question. ⁶ One with many answers can have no answers. ⁷ None of them will do. ⁸ It does not ask a question to be answered, but only to restate its point of view.

T-27.IV.4. All questions asked within this world are but a way of looking, not a question asked. ² A question asked in hate cannot be answered, because it is an answer in itself. ³ A double question asks and answers, both attesting the same thing in different form. ⁴ The world asks but one question. ⁵ It is this: "Of these illusions, which of them is true? ⁶ Which ones establish peace and offer joy? ⁷ And which can bring escape from all the pain of which this world is made?" ⁸ Whatever form the question takes, its purpose is the same. ⁹ It asks but to establish sin is real, and answers in the form of preference. ¹⁰ "Which sin do you prefer? ¹¹ That is the one that you should choose. ¹² The others are not true. ¹³ What can the body get that you would want the most of all? ¹⁴ It is your servant and also your friend. ¹⁵ But tell it what you want, and it will serve you lovingly and well." ¹⁶ And this is not a question, for it tells you what you want and where to go for it. ¹⁷ It leaves no room to question its beliefs, except that what it states takes question's form.

T-27.IV.5. A pseudo-question has no answer. ² It dictates the answer even as it asks. ³ Thus is all questioning within the world a form of propaganda for itself. ⁴ Just as the body's witnesses are but the senses from within itself, so are the answers to the questions of the world contained within the questions that are asked. ⁵ Where answers represent the questions, they add nothing new and nothing has been learned. ⁶ An honest question is a learning tool that asks for something that you do not know. ⁷ It does not set conditions for response, but merely asks what the response should be. ⁸ But no one in a conflict state is free to ask this question, for he does not want an honest answer where the conflict ends.

T-27.IV.6. Only within the holy instant can an honest question honestly be asked. ² And from the meaning of the question does the meaningfulness of the answer come. ³ Here is it possible to separate your wishes from the answer, so it can be given you and also be received. ⁴ The answer is provided everywhere. ⁵ Yet it is only here it can be heard. ⁶ An honest answer asks no sacrifice because it answers questions truly asked. ⁷ The questions of the world but ask of whom is sacrifice demanded, asking not if sacrifice is meaningful at all. ⁸ And so, unless the answer tells "of whom," it will remain unrecognized, unheard, and thus the question is preserved intact because it gave the answer to itself. ⁹ The holy instant is the interval in which the mind is still enough to hear an answer that is not entailed within the question asked. ¹⁰ It offers something new and different from the question. ¹¹ How could it be answered if it but repeats itself?

T-27.IV.7. Therefore, attempt to solve no problems in a world from which the answer has been barred. ² But bring the problem to the only place that holds the answer lovingly for you. ³ Here are the answers that will solve your problems because they stand apart from them, and see what can be answered; what the question is. ⁴ Within the world the answers merely raise another question, though they leave the first unanswered. ⁵ In the holy instant, you can bring the question to the answer, and receive the answer that was made for you.