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. But we have also said the means to meet the Holy Spirit’s goal will
come from the same Source as does His purpose. Being so simple and
direct, this course has nothing in it that is not consistent. The
seeming inconsistencies, or parts you find more difficult than others,
are merely indications of areas where means and end are still
discrepant. And this produces great discomfort. This need not be. This
course requires almost nothing of you. It is impossible to imagine one
that asks so little, or could offer more.

The period of discomfort that follows the sudden change in a
relationship from sin to holiness should now be almost over. To the
extent you still experience it, you are refusing to leave the means to
Him Who changed the purpose. You recognize you want the goal. Are you
not also willing to accept the means? If you are not, let us admit that
YOU are inconsistent. A purpose is ATTAINED by means, and if you want a
purpose, you MUST be willing to want the means as well. How 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?”

To obtain the goal, the Holy Spirit indeed asks little. He asks no more
to give the means as well. The means are second to the goal. And when
you hesitate, it is because the PURPOSE frightens you, and NOT the
means. Remember this, for otherwise you will make the error of believing
the means are difficult. Yet how can they be
difficult if they are merely GIVEN you? They guarantee the goal, and
they are perfectly in line with it. Before we look at them a little
closer, remember that if you think they are impossible, your wanting of
the PURPOSE has been shaken. For if a goal is possible to reach, the
means to do so must be possible as well.

It IS impossible to see your brother as sinless, and yet to look upon
him as a body. Is this not perfectly consistent with the goal of
holiness? For holiness is merely the result of letting the effects of
sin be lifted, so what was always true is recognized. To see a sinless
BODY is impossible, for holiness is positive, and the body is merely
neutral. It is not sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which
it is, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of
Christ OR of the ego. Either must be an error, for both would place the
attributes where they cannot be. And both must be undone for purposes of
truth.

The body IS the means by which the ego tries to make the unholy
relationship seem real. The unholy instant IS the time of bodies. But
the PURPOSE here is sin. It 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. Because of this consistency, the means remain
unquestioned while the end is cherished. Vision adapts to wish, for sight
is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen
judgement and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no
order. You either SEE or not.

Who sees a brother’s body has laid a judgement on him, and sees him not.
He does not really see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the
darkness of sin, he is invisible. He 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. Here are illusions and reality kept separated.
Here are illusions never brought to truth, and always hidden from it.
And 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.

There is indeed a difference between this vain imagining and vision. The
difference lies not in them, but in their purpose. Both are but means,
each one appropriate to the end for which it is employed. Neither can
serve the purpose of the other, for each one is a choice
of purpose, employed on its behalf. Either is meaningless without the
end for which it was intended, nor is it valued as a separate thing
apart from the intention. The means seem real because the GOAL is
valued. And judgement has no value UNLESS the goal is sin.

The body cannot be looked upon except through judgement. To see the body
is the sign that you lack vision, and have denied the means the Holy
Spirit offers you to serve HIS purpose. How can a holy relationship
achieve its purpose through the means of sin? Judgement you taught
yourself; vision is learned from Him Who would UNDO your teaching. His
vision cannot see the body because it cannot look on sin. And thus it
leads you to reality. Your holy brother, sight of whom is your release,
is no illusion. Attempt to see him not in darkness, for your imaginings
about him WILL seem real there. You closed your eyes to shut him out.
Such was your purpose, and while this purpose seems to have any meaning,
the means for its attainment will be evaluated as worth the seeing, and
so you will not see.

Your question should not be, “How can I see my brother without the
body?”Ask only,“Do I REALLY wish to see him sinless?” And as you ask,
forget not that his sinlessness is YOUR escape from fear. Salvation is
the Holy Spirit’s goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look
upon IS sinless. No-one who loves can judge, and what he sees is free of
condemnation. And what he sees he did not make, for it was given him to
see, as was the vision which made his seeing possible.