Who punishes the body is insane. For here the little gap is seen, and
yet it is not here. It has not judged itself, nor made itself to be what
it is not. It does not seek to make of pain a joy, and look for lasting
pleasure in the dust. It does not tell you what its purpose is, and
cannot understand what it is for. It does not victimize, because it has
no will, no preferences, and no doubts. It does not wonder what it is.
And so it has no need to be competitive. It CAN be victimized, but
CANNOT feel itself as victim. It accepts no role, but does what it is
told, without attack.

It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a
thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like,
although it cannot hear. It suffers not the punishment you give, because
it has no feeling. It behaves in ways you want, but never makes the
choice. It is not born and does not die. It can but follow aimlessly the
path on which it has been set. And if that path is changed, it walks as
easily another way. It takes no sides, and judges not the road it
travels. It perceives no gap, because it does not hate. It can be USED
for hate, but it cannot be hateful made thereby.

The thing you hate and fear and loathe and WANT, the body does not know.
You send it forth to seek for separation and to be a separate thing. And
THEN you hate it, not for what it is, but for the uses you have made of
it. You shrink from what it sees and what it hears, and hate its frailty
and littleness. And you despise its acts, but not your own. It sees and
acts for YOU. It hears YOUR voice. And it is frail and little by YOUR
wish. It seems to punish you, and thus
deserve your hatred for the limitations which it brings to you. Yet you
have made of it a symbol for the limitations which you want your MIND to
have and see and KEEP.

The body REPRESENTS the gap between the little bit of mind you call your
own, and all the rest of what is REALLY yours. You hate it, yet you think
it IS your self, and that, without it, would your self be lost. This is
the secret vow which you have made with every brother who would walk
apart. This is the secret oath you take again, whenever you perceive
yourself attacked. No-one can suffer if he does not see himself
attacked, and LOSING by attack. Unstated and unheard in consciousness is
every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by
him, and to attack him in return.

Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer pain.
It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, in agreement with
another’s secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from
him. Unless you BOTH agree that is your wish, it can have no effects.
Whoever says, “There IS no gap between my mind and yours” has kept God’s
promise, not his tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death. And by his
healing is his brother healed.

Let this be your agreement with each one; that you be one with him, and
not apart. And he will keep the promise that you make with him, because
it is the one which he has made to God, as God has made to him. God
keeps His promises; His Son keeps his. In his creation did his Father
say, “You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as
Myself, for you can never be apart from Me.” His Son remembers not that
he replied “I will,” though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds
him of it every time he does not share a promise to be sick, but lets
his mind be healed and unified. His secret vows are powerless before the
Will of God,Whose promises he shares. And what he substitutes is not his
will, who has made promise of himself to God.