1. You still have too much faith in the body as a source of strength. 2What plans do you make that do not involve its comfort or protection or enjoyment in some way? 3This makes the body an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this always means you still find sin attractive. 4No one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. 5You have thus not met your one responsibility. 6Atonement is not welcomed by those who prefer pain and destruction.
2. There is one thing that you have never done; you have not utterly forgotten the body. 2It has perhaps faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet completely disappeared. 3You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, yet it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens. 4Afterwards you will see the body again, but never quite the same. 5And every instant that you spend without awareness of it gives you a different view of it when you return.
3. At no single instant does the body exist at all. 2It is always remembered or anticipated, but never experienced just now. 3Only its past and future make it seem real. 4Time controls it entirely, for sin is never wholly in the present. 5In any single instant the attraction of guilt would be experienced as pain and nothing else, and would be avoided. 6It has no attraction now. 7Its whole attraction is imaginary, and therefore must be thought of in the past or in the future.
4. It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation unless, just for an instant, you are willing to see no past or future. 2You cannot prepare for it without placing it in the future. 3Release is given you the instant you desire it. 4Many have spent a lifetime in preparation, and have indeed achieved their instants of success. 5This course does not attempt to teach more than they learned in time, but it does aim at saving time. 6You may be attempting to follow a very long road to the goal you have accepted. 7It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin. 8Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make holy what is hated and despised. 9Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary. 10All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. 11Yet the means are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy.
5. Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. 2A holy relationship is a means of saving time. 3One instant spent together with your brother restores the universe to both of you. 4You are prepared. 5Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. 6It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. 7When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; “I need do nothing.”
6. Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. 2You do not need this time. 3Time has been saved for you because you and your brother are together. 4This is the special means this course is using to save you time. 5You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was made for you. 6Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. 7“I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. 8Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.
7. To do anything involves the body. 2And if you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. 3Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time. 4This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right now. 5For here is time denied, and past and future gone. 6Who needs do nothing has no need for time. 7To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. 8Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. 9He will remain when you forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy your conscious mind.
8. Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. 2And you will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. 3This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. 4For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. 5It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it.