T. 24. VII. 8 – 11. Jesus: “Perception does not seem to be a means. And it is this that makes it hard to grasp the whole extent to which it must depend on what you see it for. Perception seems to teach you what you see is true. Yet it but witnesses to what you taught to it! It is the outward picturing of an inner wish; an image that you have wanted to be true.
Look at yourself as usual, and you will see a body. Look at this body in a different light and it looks different. And without a light it seems that it is gone. Yet you are reassured that it is there because you still can feel it with your hands and hear it move. Here is an image that you want to be yourself! It is the means to make your wish come true. It gives you the eyes with which you look on it, the hands that feel it, and the ears with which you listen to the sounds it makes. It therefore ‘proves’ its own reality to you.
Thus is the body made as a ‘theory of yourself,’ with no provisions made for evidence beyond itself, and no escape within its sight. Its course is sure, when seen through its own eyes. It grows and withers, flourishes and dies. And you cannot conceive of you apart from it. You brand it sinful and you hate its acts, judging it evil. Yet your specialness whispers, ‘Here is my own beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.’ Thus does this ‘son’ become the means to serve his ‘father’s’ purpose. Not identical, not even like, but still a means to offer to ‘the father’ what he wants.
Such is the travesty on God’s Creation! For as His creation of His Son gave Him joy and witness to His Love and shared His purpose, so does the body testify to the idea of specialness that made it, and speak for that’s ‘reality and truth!’
And thus are two sons made, and both appear to walk this earth without a meeting place and no encounter. One do you perceive outside yourself, your own beloved son, the body. The other rests within you, your Father’s Son in truth, within your brother as he is in you. Their difference does not lie in how they look, nor where they go, nor even what they do. They each have a different purpose. It is this that joins them to their like, and separates each from all aspects with a different purpose. The Son of God retains His Father’s Will. The son of man perceives an alien will and wishes it were so. And thus does his perception serve his wish by giving it appearances of truth.
Yet can perception serve another goal. Perception is not bound to specialness but by your choice. And it is given you to make a different choice, and use perception for a different purpose. And what you see will then serve that purpose well, and prove its own reality to you through miracles.”