How bitterly does everyone tied to this world defend the specialness he
wants to be the truth! His wish is law unto him, and he obeys. Nothing
his specialness demands does he withhold. Nothing it needs does he deny
to what he loves. And while it calls to him he hears no other Voice. No
effort is too great, no cost too much, no price too dear to save his
specialness from the least slight, the tiniest attack, the whispered
doubt, the hint of threat, or anything but deepest reverence. This is
your son, beloved of you as you are to your Father. Yet it stands in
place of your creations, who ARE son to you, that you might SHARE the
Fatherhood of God, not snatch it from Him. What is this son that you have
made to be your strength? What is this child of earth on whom such love
is lavished? What is this parody of God’s creation that takes the place
of yours? And where are THEY, now that the host of God has found another
son which he prefers to them.

The memory of God shines not alone. What is within your brother still
contains all of creation, everything created and creating, born and
unborn as yet, still in the future or apparently gone by. What is in him
is changeless, and your changelessness is recognized in its
acknowledgment. The holiness in you belongs to him. And by your seeing
it in him, returns to you. All of the tribute you have given specialness
belongs to him, and thus returns to you. All of the love and care, the
strong protection, the thought by day and night, the deep concern, the
powerful conviction this is you, belong to him. Nothing you gave to
specialness but is his due. And nothing due him is not due to you.

How can you know your worth while specialness claims you instead? How
can you fail to know it is in his holiness? Seek not to make your
specialness the truth, for if it were you would be lost indeed. Be
thankful, rather, it is given you to see his holiness BECAUSE it is the
truth. And what is true in him must be as true in you.

Ask yourself this: Can YOU protect the mind? The body, yes, a little;
not from time, but temporarily. And much you think to save,
you hurt. What would you save it FOR? For in that choice lie both its
health and harm. Save it for show, as bait to catch another fish, to
house your specialness in better style, or weave a frame of loveliness
around your hate, and you condemn it to decay and death. And if you see
this purpose in your brother’s, such is your condemnation of your own.
Weave, rather, then, a frame of holiness around him, that the truth may
shine on him, and give you safety from decay.

The Father keeps what He created safe. You cannot touch it with the
false ideas you made, because it was created not by you. Let not your
foolish fancies frighten you. What is immortal cannot BE attacked; what
is but temporal HAS no effect. Only the purpose that you see in it has
meaning, and if that is true, its safety rests secure. If not, it has no
purpose, and is means for nothing. Whatever is perceived as means for
truth shares in its holiness, and rests in light as safely as itself.
Nor will that light go out when it is gone. Its holy purpose gave it
immortality, setting another light in Heaven, where your creations
recognize a gift from you, a sign that you have not forgotten them.

The test of everything on earth is simply this;“What is it FOR?” The
answer makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself, yet you
can give reality to it, according to the purpose which you serve. Here
you are but means, along with it. God is a Means as well as End. In
Heaven, means and end are one, and one with him. This is the state of
true creation, found not within time, but in eternity. To no-one here is
this describable. Nor is there any way to learn what this condition
means. Not till you go past learning to the Given; not till you make
again a holy home for your creations is it understood.

A co-creator with the Father must have a Son. Yet must this Son have been
created like Himself. A perfect being, all-encompassing and
all-encompassed, nothing to add and nothing taken from; not born of size
nor weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of any kind.
Here do the means and end unite as one, nor does this one have any end
at all. All this is true, and yet it has no meaning to anyone who still
retains one unlearned lesson in his memory, one thought with purpose
still uncertain, or one wish with a divided aim.

This course makes no attempt to teach what cannot easily be learned. Its
scope does not exceed your own, except to say that what
is yours will come to you when you are ready. Here are the means and
purpose separate because they were so made and so perceived. And
therefore do we deal with them as if they were. It is essential it be
kept in mind that all perception still is upside down until its purpose
has been understood. Perception does not SEEM to be a means. And it is
this that makes it hard to grasp the whole extent to which it must
depend on what you see it FOR. Perception seems to TEACH you what you
see. Yet it but witnesses to what YOU taught. It is the outward picture
of a wish; an image that you WANTED to be true.

Look at yourself, and you will see a body. Look at this body in a
different light and it looks different. And without a light it seems
that it is gone. Yet you are reassured that it is there because you
still can feel it with your hands, and hear it move. Here is an image
that you want to be yourself. It is the means to make your wish come
true. It gives the eyes with which you look on it, the hands that feel
it, and the ears with which you listen to the sounds it makes. It PROVES
its own reality to you.

Thus is the body made a theory of yourself, with no provisions made for
evidence beyond itself, and no escape within its sight. Its course is
sure, when seen through its own eyes. It grows and withers, flourishes
and dies. And you cannot conceive of you apart from it. You brand it
sinful, and you hate its acts, judging it evil. Yet your specialness
whispers, “Here is my own beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Thus
does the “son” become the means to serve his “father’s” purpose. Not
identical, not even like, but still a means to offer to the “father”
what he WANTS. Such is the travesty on God’s creation. For as His Son’s
creation gave HIM joy and witness to His Love and shared His purpose, so
does the body testify to the idea that made it, and speak for its
reality and truth.

And thus are two sons made, and both appear to walk this earth without a
meeting-place and no encounter. One do you see outside yourself, your
own beloved son. The other rests within, His Father’s Son, within your
brother as he is in you. Their difference does not lie in how they look,
nor where they go, nor even what they do. They have a different PURPOSE.
It is this that joins them to their like, and separates each from all
aspects with a different purpose. The Son of
God retains His Father’s Will. The son of man perceives an alien will,
and wishes it were so. And thus does his perception serve his wish by
giving it appearances of truth. Yet can perception serve another goal. It
is not bound to specialness but by your choice. And it IS given you to
make a different choice, and use perception for a different purpose. And
what you see will serve that purpose well, and PROVE its own reality to
you.