T. 19. I. 5 – 7. Jesus: “Surely it cannot be difficult to realize that faith must be the opposite of faithlessness. Yet the difference in how they operate is less apparent, though it follows directly from the fundamental difference in what they are.
Faith would remove all limitations and thereby have you realize your wholeness. Faithlessness, belief that the ego’s world of separation is reality, would always limit and attack the wholeness!
Faithlessness would destroy and separate; faith would unite and heal. Faithlessness would interpose illusions between the Son of God and his Creator; faith would remove all obstacles that seem to rise between them. Faithlessness is therefore wholly dedicated to illusions, the body in particular, while faith is wholly dedicated to truth.
‘Partial dedication’ to truth is impossible! Truth is the absence of illusion; illusion the absence of truth! Both cannot be together, nor perceived in the same place. To dedicate yourself to both is to set up a goal forever impossible to attain, for part of it is sought through the body, conceived of as a means for seeking out ‘another reality’ through attack upon the whole.
The other part of the divided goal would heal, however, and therefore calls upon the mind and not the body. But the unholy compromise that emerges here is the belief that ‘the body must be healed,’ though not the mind! For this divided goal has given both an equal ‘reality,’ which could be possible only if the mind is limited to the body, thus divided into little parts of ‘seeming wholeness,’ each separate and alone, with no connection. This divided goal of trying to hold onto both will not harm the body, but it will keep the delusional thought system of separation in the mind!
Here, then, is sickness in its essence, and where real healing is needed. And it is here, indeed, that healing is! For God gave healing not apart from sickness, nor established remedy where sickness cannot be. They are together, and when they are seen together, all attempts to keep both truth and illusion in the mind, where both must be, are recognized as dedication to illusion! And they are given up when brought to truth by your decision, and seen as totally irreconcilable with truth, in any respect or in any way.
Truth and illusion have no connection nor any common ground! This will remain forever true, however much you seek to connect them. But illusions are always connected, as is truth. Each is united, a complete thought system, but totally disconnected to each other. And to perceive this is to recognize where separation is, and where it must be healed. The result of an idea is never separate from its source.
The idea of separation produced the body and remains connected to it, making it sick because of the mind’s identification with it. You merely think you are protecting the body by hiding this connection, for this concealment seems to keep your identification safe from the ‘attack’ by truth.”