1. We have said much about discrepancies of means and end, and how these must be brought in line before your holy relationship can bring you only joy. 2But we have also said the means to meet the Holy Spirit’s goal will come from the same Source as does His purpose. 3Being so simple and direct, this course has nothing in it that is not consistent. 4The seeming inconsistencies, or parts you find more difficult than others, are merely indications of areas where means and end are still discrepant. 5And this produces great discomfort. 6This need not be. 7This course requires almost nothing of you. 8It is impossible to imagine one that asks so little, or could offer more.
2. The period of discomfort that follows the sudden change in a relationship from sin to holiness may now be almost over. 2To the extent you still experience it, you are refusing to leave the means to Him Who changed the purpose. 3You recognize you want the goal. 4Are you not also willing to accept the means? 5If you are not, let us admit that you are inconsistent. 6A purpose is attained by means, and if you want a purpose you must be willing to want the means as well. 7How can one be sincere and say, “I want this above all else, and yet I do not want to learn the means to get it?”
3. To obtain the goal the Holy Spirit indeed asks little. 2He asks no more to give the means as well. 3The means are second to the goal. 4And when you hesitate, it is because the purpose frightens you, and not the means. 5Remember this, for otherwise you will make the error of believing the means are difficult. 6Yet how can they be difficult if they are merely given you? 7They guarantee the goal, and they are perfectly in line with it. 8Before we look at them a little closer, remember that if you think they are impossible, your wanting of the purpose has been shaken. 9For if a goal is possible to reach, the means to do so must be possible as well.
4. It is impossible to see your brother as sinless and yet to look upon him as a body. 2Is this not perfectly consistent with the goal of holiness? 3For holiness is merely the result of letting the effects of sin be lifted, so what was always true is recognized. 4To see a sinless body is impossible, for holiness is positive and the body is merely neutral. 5It is not sinful, but neither is it sinless. 6As nothing, which it is, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ or of the ego. 7Either must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot be. 8And both must be undone for purposes of truth.
5. The body is the means by which the ego tries to make the unholy relationship seem real. 2The unholy instant is the time of bodies. 3But the purpose here is sin. 4It cannot be attained but in illusion, and so the illusion of a brother as a body is quite in keeping with the purpose of unholiness. 5Because of this consistency, the means remain unquestioned while the end is cherished. 6Seeing adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. 7And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment and not vision. 8For vision, like relationships, has no order. 9You either see or not.
6. Who sees a brother’s body has laid a judgment on him, and sees him not. 2He does not really see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. 3In the darkness of sin he is invisible. 4He can but be imagined in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about him are not held up to his reality. 5Here are illusions and reality kept separated. 6Here are illusions never brought to truth, and always hidden from it. 7And here, in darkness, is your brother’s reality imagined as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of sin an instant before he dies.
7. There is indeed a difference between this vain imagining and vision. 2The difference lies not in them, but in their purpose. 3Both are but means, each one appropriate to the end for which it is employed. 4Neither can serve the purpose of the other, for each one is a choice of purpose, employed on its behalf. 5Either is meaningless without the end for which it was intended, nor is it valued as a separate thing apart from the intention. 6The means seem real because the goal is valued. 7And judgment has no value unless the goal is sin.
8. The body cannot be looked upon except through judgment. 2To see the body is the sign that you lack vision, and have denied the means the Holy Spirit offers you to serve His purpose. 3How can a holy relationship achieve its purpose through the means of sin? 4Judgment you taught yourself; vision is learned from Him Who would undo your teaching. 5His vision cannot see the body because it cannot look on sin. 6And thus it leads you to reality. 7Your holy brother, sight of whom is your release, is no illusion. 8Attempt to see him not in darkness, for your imaginings about him will seem real there. 9You closed your eyes to shut him out. 10Such was your purpose, and while this purpose seems to have a meaning, the means for its attainment will be evaluated as worth the seeing, and so you will not see.
9. Your question should not be, “How can I see my brother without the body?” 2Ask only, “Do I really wish to see him sinless?” 3And as you ask, forget not that his sinlessness is your escape from fear. 4Salvation is the Holy Spirit’s goal. 5The means is vision. 6For what the seeing look upon is sinless. 7No one who loves can judge, and what he sees is free of condemnation. 8And what he sees he did not make, for it was given him to see, as was the vision that made his seeing possible.