Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 21: Seeing Reality
7. Purpose Determines Means
This Course has 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. It has also said that the Means to meet the Holy Spirit’s Goal will come from the same Source – the Divine – as does Its Purpose. This Course is simple and direct and has nothing in it that is not consistent. The seeming inconsistencies, or parts you may find more difficult than others, are merely indications of areas in your mind where means and end are still discrepant. And this produces great discomfort, though this need not be.
Considered clearly, this Course asks quite little of you in the context of the totality of your life. It is impossible to imagine something that asks so little and at the same time could offer more.
The period of discomfort that follows the sudden change in a relationship moving from unholiness to holiness should be relatively short. To the extent you experience it for what seems a longer period, you are refusing to leave the means to Spirit, Who changed the purpose of your relationship for you. You recognize that you want the new goal. Are you not also willing to accept the new means? If you are not, let us admit that you are being inconsistent. A purpose is attained by means. And if you want to achieve a goal, you must be willing to want the means for its achievement as well. It would be insincere to say, “I want this goal above all else, and yet I do not want to learn the means to get it.”
To obtain the new goal of your relationship, the Holy Spirit indeed asks little. It asks only a little of you as well to give you the means. The means are second to the goal. And when you hesitate it is because the goal or 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 to you? They guarantee the success of achieving the goal because they are perfectly in line with it. Before we consider these means a little closer, remember that if you think they are impossible, then it means that your wanting of the purpose has been shaken so that it is not complete. 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 or sister as sinless and yet to look upon them as a body. Seeing them as sinless is perfectly consistent with the goal of Holiness, for Holiness is merely the result of letting the effects of the belief in sin be removed, so that what was always true is recognized. To see a sinless body is impossible because Holiness is positive, and the body is merely neutral. Being neutral, the body is neither sinful nor sinless. As nothing, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Divine Essence or of the ego. To attribute either to the body must be an error, for either would place the attributes where they cannot be. And therefore both must be undone for Purposes of Truth.
The unholy instant is the time of bodies. In this case the body becomes the means by which the ego tries to make the unholy relationship seem real. For the purpose here is what is believed to be sin, which cannot be attained but in illusion. And so the illusion of a brother or sister 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. Perception adapts to wish as well as to will, being always secondary to desire. And if you perceive the body as your focus, you have chosen judgment and not Vision. For Vision, like relationships, has no levels or orders. You either see, or not.
Who looks upon a brother’s or sister’s body has laid a judgment on them that the body is what they are, and therefore sees them not. Perceiving a brother or sister as a body does not mean to perceive them as sinful, it just means that you do not perceive them truly at all. In the darkness of judgment, who they are is invisible. They can then only be imagined in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about them are not held up to Reality. In darkness are illusions and Reality kept separated. Here are illusions never brought to Truth, but always hidden from It. And here, in darkness, is your sisters and brothers’ reality imagined as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of separation an instant before it dies.
How different is this vain imagining from Vision! And yet the difference is not in them, but in their purpose. Both are merely means, each one appropriate to the end for which it is used. 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.
Judgment has no value unless the purpose is separation, which is the goal of the belief in sin. And the body cannot be looked upon except through judgment. To look upon the body is thus the sign that you lack Vision, and have denied the Means the Holy Spirit offers you to serve Its Purpose. How can a holy relationship achieve its Purpose through the means of unholiness? You taught yourself judgment, but Vision is learned from Spirit, Who would undo your erroneous learning. Its Vision cannot see the body because It cannot behold separation or sin, or unreality in any form. And thus It leads you to Reality.
Your holy sisters and brothers, vision of whom is your Release, are no illusion. Attempt not to perceive them in darkness, for your imaginings about them will seem real there. Once upon a time you closed your spiritual eye to shut them out. Such was your wish, and while this wish still seems to have any meaning for you, the means for its attainment will be judged as worth the effort, and so you will not see.
Your question should not be, “How can I perceive my brother or sister without the body?” Ask only, “Do I really wish to perceive them in our Oneness?,” which will mean, “Do I really want to see them?” And as you ask, remember that their union with you is your release from fear.
Vision will come to you at first in glimpses, but they will be enough to show you what will be given you who see your sisters and brothers as one with you.
Awakening is the Holy Spirit’s Goal, Truth Its Purpose, and Vision is Its Means. For what the seeing behold is flawless. No one who loves can judge, and what they see is free of condemnation. And what they see they did not make, for it was given them to see, as was the Vision that made their seeing possible.
