I Need Do Nothing

Chapter 18 – 7. I Need Do Nothing

You still have too much faith in the body as a source of strength. What
plans do you make that do not involve its comfort or protection or
enjoyment in some way? This makes the body an end and not a means in
your interpretation, and this always means you still find sin attractive. No
one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You
have thus not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by
those who prefer pain and destruction.
 
There is one thing that you have never done; you have not utterly forgotten
the body. It has perhaps faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet
completely disappeared. You are not asked to let this happen for more than
an instant, yet it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens.
 
Afterwards you will see the body again, but never quite the same. And
every instant that you spend without awareness of it gives you a different
view of it when you return.
 
At no single instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or
anticipated, but never experienced just now. Only its past and future make it
seem real. Time controls it entirely, for sin is never wholly in the present. In
any single instant the attraction of guilt would be experienced as pain and
nothing else, and would be avoided. It has no attraction now. Its whole
attraction is imaginary, and therefore must be thought of in the past or in the
future.
 
It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation unless, just for
an instant, you are willing to see no past or future. You cannot prepare for it
without placing it in the future. Release is given you the instant you desire
it. Many have spent a lifetime in preparation, and have indeed achieved
their instants of success. This course does not attempt to teach more than
they learned in time, but it does aim at saving time. You may be attempting
to follow a very long road to the goal you have accepted. It is extremely
difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin. Nor is a lifetime of
contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the
body necessary. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their
purpose. Yet 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.
 
Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. A holy relationship
is a means of saving time. One instant spent together restores the universe to
both of you. You are prepared. Now you need but to remember you need do
nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this
than to consider what you should do. When 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.”
 
Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own
way, at his own time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved for
you because you and your brother are together. This is the special means
this course is using to save you time. You are not making use of the course
if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what
was made for you. Save time for me by only this one preparation, and
practice doing nothing else. “I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance,
a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will
accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle
against temptation.
 
To do anything involves the body. And if you recognize you need do
nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. Here is the
quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and
escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right
now. For here is time denied, and past and future gone. Who needs do
nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place
within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into
this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. He will remain when you
forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy your conscious mind.
 
Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you
will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging
activity. This 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. For
from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this
center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness
of it.