Chapter 5: Healing and Wholeness

VII. Time and Eternity

¹ The continuing will to remain separated is the only possible reason for continuing guilt feelings. We have said this before, but we did not emphasize the destructive results of this decision at that time.

Any decision of the mind will affect both behavior and experience. What you will, you except. This is not delusional. Your mind does create your future, and it can turn it back to full creation at any minute, if it accepts the atonement first. It will also turn back to full creation the instant it has done so. Having given up its thought disorder, the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.

² God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is bereft while you wait. All the Sons of God are waiting for your return, just as you are waiting for theirs. Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and have therefore changed your belief in your status. Yet your election is both free and alterable. You do not belong in time. Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever.

³ Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. They induce fears of future retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will remain like the past. This is the egoʹs continuity, and gives it a false sense of security through the belief that you cannot escape from it. But you can and must.

God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment and in every possible way. And as its maker you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it.

⁴ The mind does indeed know its power, because the mind does indeed know God. Remember the Kingdom always, and remember that you who are part of the Kingdom cannot be lost. The mind that was in me is in you, for God creates with perfect fairness. Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His fairness, and let me teach you how to share it with your brothers. How else can the chance to claim it for yourself be given you?

What you do not understand is that the two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until the first one was made, and speaking itself was unnecessary before the ego was made.

⁵ The ego speaks in judgment and the Holy Spirit reverses its decisions, much as the Supreme Court has the power to reverse the lower courtsʹ decisions about the laws of this world. The egoʹs decisions are always wrong because they are based on a complete fallacy which they were made to uphold. Nothing the ego perceives is interpreted correctly. Not only does it cite Scripture for its purpose, but it even interprets Scripture as a witness for itself. The Bible is a fearful thing to the ego because of its prejudiced judgment. Perceiving it as fearful, it interprets it fearfully. Having made you afraid, you do not appeal to the Higher Court because you believe its judgment would be against you.

⁶ We need cite only a few examples to see how the egoʹs interpretations have misled you. A favorite ego quotation is “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Another is “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.” Still another is “I will visit the sins of the father unto the third and fourth generation,” and also “The wicked shall perish.” There are many others, but if you will let the Holy Spirit re‐interpret these in His own light, they will suffice. 

⁷ “As ye sow, so shall ye reap” merely means that what you believe to be worth cultivating you will cultivate in yourself. Your judgment of what is worthy makes it worthy for you. “

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” is easily explained if you remember that ideas increase only by being shared. This quotation therefore emphasizes the fact that vengeance cannot be shared. Give it therefore to the Holy Spirit, Who will undo it in you because it does not belong in your mind, which is part of God.

⁸ “I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation,” as interpreted by the ego, is particularly vicious. It is used, in fact, as an attempt to guarantee its survival beyond itself. Actually, all the quotation means is that the Holy Spirit, in later generations, retains the power to interpret correctly what former generations have thought, and thus release their thoughts from the ability to produce fear anywhere in the Sonship.

“The wicked shall perish” is merely a statement of fact, if the word “perish” is properly understood. Every loveless thought must be undone. Even the word “undone” is fearful to the ego, which interprets “I am undone” as “I am destroyed.”

⁹ The ego will not be destroyed because it is part of your thought, but because it is uncreative, and therefore unsharing, it will be re‐interpreted entirely, to release you from fear. The part of your thought which you have given to the ego will merely return to the Kingdom where your whole mind belongs.

The ego is a form of arrest, but arrest is merely delay. It does not involve the concept of punishment, although the ego welcomes that interpretation. You can delay the completion of the Kingdom, but you cannot introduce the concept of assault into it.

¹⁰ When I said, “I am come as a light into the world,” I surely came to share the light with you. Remember the symbolic  reference we made before to the egoʹs dark glass, and remember also that we said, “Do not look there.” It is still true that “where you look to find yourself is up to you.” The Higher Court will not condemn you. It will merely dismiss the case against you. There can be no case against a Child of God, and every witness to guilt in Godʹs creations is bearing false witness to God Himself.

¹¹ Appeal everything you believe gladly to Godʹs Own Higher Court because it speaks for Him, and therefore speaks truly. It will dismiss the case against you however carefully you have built it. The case may be foolproof, but it is not God‐proof. The Voice for God will not hear it at all because He can only witness truly. His verdict will always be “Thine is the Kingdom” because He was given you to remind you of what you are.

¹² Your patience with each other is your patience with yourselves. Is not a Child of God worth patience? I have shown you infinite patience because my will is that of our Father, from Whom I learned of infinite patience. His Voice was in me as it is in you, speaking for patience toward the Sonship in the Name of its Creator.

What you need to learn now is that only infinite patience can produce immediate effects. This is the way in which time is exchanged for eternity. Infinite patience calls upon infinite love, and by producing results now it renders time unnecessary.

¹³ To say that time is temporary is merely redundant. We have repeatedly said that time is a learning device which will be abolished when it is no longer useful. The Holy Spirit, Who speaks for God in time, also knows that time is meaningless. He reminds you of this in every passing moment of time because it is His special function to return you to eternity, and remain to bless your creations there. He is the only blessing you can truly give because He is so truly blessed, and because He has been given you so freely by God, you must give Him as you received Him.

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