Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 29: Undoing the Gap of Separation
7. The Body’s Holy Purpose
The Divine is Everything, and Its Children, like It, are Everything and therefore have Everything. Thus there is no lack in them, and in their reality they have no needs, and therefore have no need to ask for anything. An empty space, a little gap, would be a lack. And it is only there that they could want for something that they believe they have not. A space where the Divine is not, a gap between the Creator and Its Creation, is not the will of either, who have promised to be One. The Divine’s Promise is a Promise to Itself, and there is no one who could be untrue to what the Divine wills as Part of what It is. The Promise that there is no gap between Itself and what It is cannot be false. What will can come between what must be One, and in Whose Wholeness there can be no gaps?
The beautiful Relationship you have with all your sisters and brothers is a part of you because It is a Part of the Divine Itself. Must sickness not seem to result if you deny yourself your Wholeness and your health, your Source of Help, the Call to be healed, and your call to heal and help? Your awakeners wait for healing, and the world waits with them. Nor are you apart from them. For healing will be One or not at all, its Oneness being where the healing is. What could correct for separation but its opposite? There is no middle ground in any aspect of awakening. You accept it wholly or not at all. What is unseparated must be joined. And what is joined cannot be separate.
Either there is a gap between you and your sisters and brothers, or you are One. There is no in-between, no other choice, and no allegiance to be split between the two. A split allegiance is merely faithlessness to both choices, and only sets you spinning round, to grasp uncertainly at any straw that seems to hold some promise of relief. Yet who can build their home upon straw and count on it as shelter from the wind? The body can be made a home like this because it lacks foundation in the Truth. And yet, because it lacks a foundation, it can be seen as not your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the Home where the Divine eternally abides, and you with It.
With this as its Purpose is the body released from the illusion of sickness. It is not used to witness to the dream of separation and suffering. Nor is it idly blamed for what it did not do. It serves to help the healing of the minds of the Divine’s Children, and for this Purpose it will be free of infirmity. It will only join the purpose you have chosen for it, and you are now choosing that it not be the bearer of your projection of sickness. All miracles are based upon this choice, and given you the Instant it is made. No forms of the appearance of sickness are immune to this Cure, because the choice for healing cannot be made in terms of form. The choice of sickness seems to be in multiple forms, yet the choice itself is always one and the same, as is its opposite. And you are sick or well, accordingly. But never you alone.
This world is simply the dream that you can be alone, and think without affecting those who appear to be apart from you. To be alone must mean that you are apart, and if you are, you must be sick. Sickness thus seems to prove that you must be apart. Yet all it means is that you tried to keep a secret vow to be true to faithlessness. Yet faithlessness is sickness, and no vow can be made to it and be kept. It is like a house built upon straw. It seems to be quite solid and substantial in itself. But its stability cannot be judged apart from its foundation. If it rests on straw, there is no need to lock the windows, bar the door, and make fast the bolts. The winds will topple it, and rain will come and carry it into oblivion.
What is the sense in seeking to be safe in what was made for danger and for fear? Why burden it with further locks and chains and heavy anchors when its weakness lies not in itself, but in the frailty of the little gap of nothingness whereon it stands? What can be safe that rests upon a shadow? Would you build your home upon what will collapse beneath a feather’s weight? Your real Home is built upon your sisters and brothers’ Wholeness – which must include yours – their Happiness, their Innocence, and Everything their Creator has promised and given them and you. No secret vow that you have made instead has shaken or will ever touch the eternal Foundation of your true Home.
The winds of this world will seem to blow upon your true Home and the rain to beat against It, but with no effect in Reality. The world of illusions itself will wash away, and yet this Home will stand forever, for Its Strength isn’t within Itself alone. It is an Ark of Safety, resting on the Divine’s Promise that Its Children are safe forever in Itself. What gap can interpose itself between the Safety of this Shelter and Its Source? From here, the body can be seen as what it is, and neither less nor more in worth than the extent to which it can be used to liberate the Divine’s Children unto their true Home. And with this holy Purpose is it made a house of Holiness a little while, because it shares your Creator’s Will with you.
