"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. ²It is a loud, obscuring voice whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. ³Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him and focusing upon itself. ⁴Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means to make the body real. ⁵What shares a common purpose is the same. ⁶This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. ⁷Pleasure and pain are equally unreal, because their purpose cannot be achieved. ⁸Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. ⁹And they share the lack of meaning which their purpose has. Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. ²For either witness is the same, and carries but one message: “You are here, within this body, and you can be hurt. ³You can have pleasure, too, but only at the cost of pain.” (https://acim.org/acim/en/s/311#