 From chapter 2, we continue today with the altar of God. The atonement can be accepted within you only by realizing of the inner light. Since the separation, defenses have been used almost entirely to defend against the atonement, and thus maintain this separation. This is generally seen as a need to protect the body. The many body fantasies in which minds engage arise from the distorted belief that the body can be used as a means for attaining atonement. Perceiving the body as a temple is only the first step in correcting this distortion because it alters only part of it. It does recognize that atonement in physical terms is impossible. The next step, however, is to realize that a temple is not a structure at all. Its true holiness lies at the inner altar around which the structure is built. The emphasis on beautiful structures is a sign of the fear of atonement and an unwillingness to reach the altar itself. The real beauty of the temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. Spiritual sight, on the other hand, cannot see the structure at all because it is perfect vision. It can, however, see the altar with perfect clarity. For perfect effectiveness the atonement belongs at the center of the inner altar where it undoes the separation and restores the wholeness of the mind. Before the separation the mind was invulnerable to fear because fear did not exist. Both the separation and the fear are miscreations that must be undone for the restoration of the temple and for the opening of the altar to receive the atonement. This heals the separation by placing within you the one effective defense against all separation thoughts and making you perfectly invulnerable. The acceptance of the atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. This may appear to contradict free will because of the inevitability of the final decision. But this is not so. You can temporize and you are capable of enormous procrastination but you cannot depart entirely from your creator who set the limits on your ability to miscreate. An imprisoned will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Tolerance for pain may be high but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established it becomes a turning point. This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict which can become very acute. But the outcome is as certain as God. Spiritual vision literally cannot see error and merely looks for atonement. All solutions the physical eye seeks dissolve. Spiritual vision looks within recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled and needs to be repaired and protected. Perfectly aware of the right defense it passes over all others looking past error to truth. Because of the strength of its vision it brings the mind into its service. This reestablishes the power of the mind and makes it increasingly unable to tolerate delay realizing that it only adds unnecessary pain. As a result the mind becomes increasingly sensitive to what it would once have regarded as very minor intrusions of discomfort. The children of God are entitled to the perfect comfort that comes from perfect trust. Until they achieve this they waste themselves on and their true creative powers on useless attempts to make themselves more comfortable by inappropriate means. But the real means are already provided and do not involve any effort at all on their part. The atonement is the only gift that is worthy of being offered at the altar of God because of the value of the altar itself. It was created perfect and is entirely worthy of receiving perfection. God and his creations are completely dependent on each other. He depends on them because he created them perfect. He gave them his peace so they could not be shaken and could not be deceived. Whenever you are afraid you are deceived and your mind cannot serve the Holy Spirit. This stars you by denying you your daily bread. God is lonely without his sons and they are lonely without him. They must learn to look upon the world as a means of healing, a separation. The atonement is the guarantee that they will ultimately succeed. And from the workbook today we have lesson number nine. I see nothing as it is now. This idea obviously follows from the two preceding ones. But while you may be able to accept it intellectually it is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet. However, understanding is not necessary at this point. In fact, the recognition that you do not understand is a prerequisite for undoing your false ideas. These exercises are concerned with practice, not with understanding. You do not need to practice what you already understand. It would indeed be circular to aim at understanding and assume that you have it already. It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there. This idea can be quite disturbing and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms. Yet that does not preclude applying it. No more than that is required for these or any other exercises. Each small step will clear a little of the darkness away and understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind that has been cleared of the debris that darkens it. These exercises for which three or four practice periods are sufficient involve looking about you and applying the idea for the day to whatever you see remembering the need for its indiscriminate application and the essential rule of excluding nothing. For example, I do not see this typewriter as it is now. I do not see this telephone as it is now. I do not see this arm as it is now. Begin with things that are nearest to you and then extend the range outward. I do not see that coat rack as it is now. I do not see that door as it is now. I do not see that face as it is now. It is emphasized again that while complete inclusion should not be attempted specific exclusion must be avoided. Be sure you are honest with yourself in making this distinction. You may be tempted to obscure it. I see nothing as it is now. So this is a huge lesson in opening to the awareness that nothing I see means anything. It is a version of the first lesson of the workbook but it is bringing in the idea of now and that nothing is truly seen or perceived now. We have become accustomed to a sense of now and actually we are being shown, guided towards an experience that we have not known the present in this world. That the present is not a blip of time that becomes available between the past and the future. The present is before time was and that is the reason I see nothing as it is now. To be fully present is to be in the light of the great rays. To be fully present is revelatory. To be fully present is the light of heaven. So these great rays are not on the timeline. Certainly not between the past and the future, which are the same. It also fits with our earlier lesson that I see only the past for teaching devices, I have called this for years, the past past and the future past because they are the same. They are not different. They, the past past and the future past, block the awareness of the light. So it is a very humble lesson today. It is an admission that I am not really seeing and it is an important admission if I want to truly see with the spiritual eye the altar within with Christ's vision. And as we read in the text today, the body is not the temple is an altar, an inner altar. It is not a structure. It is not a body. It is not a building. It is not a flower. Even in this world, oftentimes seemingly external altars are built. But today's lesson wipes them out. I see nothing as it is now. And points us to the inner altar, which is true beauty. Our reading from the text today pointed us to where true beauty can be found, not in physicality because God is beauty and God did not create the physical. So it must be that the Holy Spirit can use the seeming physical, the seeming symbols and structures of the world to erase them, to delete them. And we begin today in earnest, in sincerity, like a little child with hands and arms outstretched, looking up and saying, show me, show me the way to spiritual vision, which is my natural inheritance, which offers true gifts, the gifts I was given in creation by my Source, God. And so we begin this opening to the inner altar as we glance one more time at the perceptual world and admit with the core of our heart. I see nothing as it is now.