You still have too much faith in the body as a source of strength. What
plans do you make that do not involve its comfort or protection or
enjoyment in some way? This makes it an end and not a means in your
interpretation, and this ALWAYS means you still find sin attractive.
No-one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his
goal. You have thus not met your ONE responsibility. Atonement is not
welcomed by those who prefer pain and destruction.

You have made much progress and are really trying to make still more,
but there is one thing you have never done; not for one instant have you
utterly forgotten the body. It has faded at times from your sight, but
it has not yet completely disappeared. You are not asked to let this
happen for more than an instant, yet it is in this instant that the
miracle of Atonement happens. Afterwards, you will see the body again,
but never quite the same. And every instant that you spend WITHOUT
awareness of it gives you a different view of it when you return .

At no single instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered
or anticipated, but never experienced just NOW. Only its past and future
make it seem real. Time controls it entirely, for sin is never present.
In any single instant, the attraction of guilt would be experienced as
pain and nothing else, and would be avoided. It has no attraction NOW.
Its whole attraction is imaginary, and therefore MUST be thought of in
the past or in the future.

It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation unless,
just for an instant, you are willing to see NO past or future. You cannot
prepare for it WITHOUT placing it in the future. Release is given you
the instant you desire it. Many have spent a lifetime in preparation,
and have indeed achieved their instants of success. This course does not
attempt to teach more than they learned in time, but it does aim at
SAVING time. You are attempting to follow a very long road to the goal
you have accepted. It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by
fighting against sin. Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long
periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body
necessary. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their
purpose. Yet 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.

Your way will be different, not in purpose, but in means. A holy
relationship is a means of SAVING TIME. One instant spent TOGETHER
restores the universe to BOTH of you. You ARE prepared. Now you need but
to remember you need do NOTHING. It would be far more profitable now
merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you SHOULD do. When
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.”

Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own
way, at his own time. We do not need this time. Time has been saved for
you because you are together. This is the special means this course is
using to save you time. You are not making use of the course if you
insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was
made for YOU. Save time for me by only this ONE preparation, and
practice doing nothing else. “I need do nothing” is a statement of
allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant,
and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of
contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.

To DO anything involves the body. And if you recognize you NEED do
nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. Here is the
quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and
escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction RIGHT
NOW. For here is time denied, and past and future gone. Who need do
nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place
within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention.
Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. He will remain
when you forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy your
conscious mind.

Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And
you will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its
raging activity. This 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. For from this center will you be
directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this center, from which
the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it.