1. You still have too much faith in the body as a source of strength. ²What plans do you make that do not involve its comfort or protection or enjoyment in some way? ³This makes the body an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this always means you still find sin attractive. ⁴No one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. ⁵You have thus not met your one responsibility. ⁶Atonement is not welcomed by those who prefer pain and destruction.

2. There is one thing that you have never done; you have not utterly forgotten the body. ²It has perhaps faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet completely disappeared. ³You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, yet it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens. ⁴Afterwards you will see the body again, but never quite the same. ⁵And every instant that you spend without awareness of it gives you a different view of it when you return.

3. At no single instant does the body exist at all. ²It is always remembered or anticipated, but never experienced just now. ³Only its past and future make it seem real. ⁴Time controls it entirely, for sin is never wholly in the present. ⁵In any single instant the attraction of guilt would be experienced as pain and nothing else, and would be avoided. ⁶It has no attraction now. ⁷Its whole attraction is imaginary, and therefore must be thought of in the past or in the future.

4. It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation unless, just for an instant, you are willing to see no past or future. ²You cannot prepare for it without placing it in the future. ³Release is given you the instant you desire it. ⁴Many have spent a lifetime in preparation, and have indeed achieved their instants of success. ⁵This course does not attempt to teach more than they learned in time, but it does aim at saving time. ⁶You may be attempting to follow a very long road to the goal you have accepted. ⁷It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin. ⁸Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make holy what is hated and despised. ⁹Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary. ¹⁰All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. ¹¹Yet the means are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy.

5. Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. ²A holy relationship is a means of saving time. ³One instant spent together with your brother restores the universe to both of you. ⁴You are prepared. ⁵Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. ⁶It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. ⁷When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; “I need do nothing.”

6. Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. ²You do not need this time. ³Time has been saved for you because you and your brother are together. ⁴This is the special means this course is using to save you time. ⁵You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was made for you. ⁶Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. ⁷“I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. ⁸Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.

7. To do anything involves the body. ²And if you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. ³Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time. ⁴This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right now. ⁵For here is time denied, and past and future gone. ⁶Who needs do nothing has no need for time. ⁷To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. ⁸Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. ⁹He will remain when you forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy your conscious mind.

8. Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. ²And you will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. ³This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. ⁴For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. ⁵It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it.