ACIM Chapter 13. IV. The Function of Time, P 1-4

IV. The Function of Time, P 1

1 And now the reason why you are afraid of this course should be apparent. For this is a course on love, because it is about you. You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and you have no function at all in Heaven. It would thus destroy you here and bury you here, leaving you no inheritance except the dust out of which it thinks you were made. As long as it is reasonably satisfied with you, as its reasoning goes, it offers you oblivion. When it becomes overtly savage, it offers you hell.

It is like when we decided on the tiny mad idea, we made an agreement that we would not see the truth anymore. We would not, in any way, acknowledge the love that we are. We would live in a world that was in opposition to truth. To do this, we need to section off part of the mind and use that part to sleep and dream. This part of the mind made an ego, a voice that would keep us in the dream and direct the dream for us. Its job is to keep the truth at bay so as to extend the dream.

The ego is a way to have this experience, and it follows the directives we gave it.

It has no power of its own, only what we allow it. To have the dream we had to “forget” the truth and in the course of exploring duality, we have become thoroughly lost in it. But God gave us a failsafe, a way out of the dream when we were done with it. This Voice is the voice of truth, our Guide, and our Helper.

We have taken advantage of this because we are ready to awaken. In fact, it has already been done through our brother, Jesus. Now we are simply accepting the awakening as we are ready to do so. This book, A Course in Miracles, is one of the tools provided by Jesus to help us make that decision. It is a powerful tool. It is about love, which we have forsaken in order to experience duality. But we cannot lose it because it is what we are.

This book is for us because it is about us.

That is why it helps us wake up. It is like an amnesiac looking at photo albums and reading about his life until a memory sparks. This book helps us see why we don’t want to stay in the dream. Then, it helps us remember that we don’t have to, that we are glorious Beings, and that we have a Home.

We are afraid of this course and of waking up only because we are still listening to the ego, which is following its orders to keep the dream going. But we were never meant to stay in the dream forever. We have played the game well; now it is time to leave it behind and go Home. It is time to turn away from the ego and toward the Voice for God so that It can lead us out of our dreams and into Love. It is time to break the agreement, wake up, and wake up our fellow dreamers.

IV. the Function of Time, P 2

2 Yet neither oblivion nor hell is as unacceptable to you as Heaven. Your definition of Heaven is hell and oblivion, and the real Heaven is the greatest threat you think you could experience. For hell and oblivion are ideas that you made up, and you are bent on demonstrating their reality to establish yours. If their reality is questioned, you believe that yours is. For you believe that attack is your reality, and that your destruction is the final proof that you were right.

Good grief. What am I supposed to say to this? I think that attack is my salvation so that means I think attack is Heaven. That war is Heaven. It doesn’t seem so, but if I examine my life, I see that this has always been true. Even now I still sometimes have thoughts of a grievance. I obviously think that I need to defend myself, and it would be hell to be left facing this one without defense.

I also understand thinking of Heaven as hell and oblivion. When the idea that this separate self that I believe in would not exist in Heaven and that I would disappear into God, I was afraid. I thought that I would not exist because I thought I was the self, and so Heaven seemed like hell to me. I decided to trust Jesus and go for it anyway, and eventually, the belief that I am the separate self began to fall away and, with it, the fear of Heaven.

What Jesus is showing me is that my thinking is confused when I focus on the story.

The story is designed to prove that attack and defense are justified. So, when I look at the story, I am going to believe in the necessity of attack. But if I look away from the story and focus instead on what it represents, I will gain the clarity I need to make a different choice.

When I was feeling defensive at work, I kept looking at my fellow employee and seeing her actions and words, which were clearly an attack on me. From that perspective, I could not see any alternative except to defend myself. When I would ask for another way to see it, I would hear that I was to just love her, and according to my understanding of the situation, that made no sense at all. It did not solve my problem as I saw it, so I just kept defending myself.

When I let go of my interpretation of the problem, I could suddenly see that I was keeping myself in hell with my thoughts. I was miserable, and I kept blaming her for my misery. But when I stopped thinking about the story of Myron and her co-worker and started thinking about what the story represents, an opportunity to forgive, all I could see was that we were two Sons of God dreaming of destruction, and I had a chance to wake us up. It would be insane not to take that opportunity.

I think of her now and wonder what she looks like in reality.

What does pure Love and pure Godness look like? I want only to love her and help her. But I would like to know if I could experience myself dissolve into her and return to oneness. I wonder if I could let go of my hold on the dream long enough to imagine that. Could I let go of the world of form to return to whatever we are in essence? At least in my imagination? Could I at least taste that memory for just a moment or just an instant?

What was the story about? We were attacking each other about something or another? I can’t remember, and who cares? It’s ridiculous, anyway. 

IV. the Function of Time, P 3

3 Under the circumstances, would it not be more desirable to have been wrong, even apart from the fact that you were wrong? While it could perhaps be argued that death suggests there was life, no one would claim that it proves there is life. Even the past life that death might indicate, could only have been futile if it must come to this, and needs this to prove that it was at all. You question Heaven, but you do not question this. Yet you could heal and be healed if you did question it. And even though you know not Heaven, might it not be more desirable than death? You have been as selective in your questioning as in your perception. An open mind is more honest than this.

I think that my mind is more open and more honest than this.

I think that I have no fear of death and that I have no belief in death. What we call death is just another stage of the illusion. I think that there is nothing to fear in this, just another waste of time. I think that I understand that there is Life and that I can remember it and return my awareness to it, and that this is what I am doing through the study and practice of A Course in Miracles.

When I say, “I think” I know all this, it is because I can only know for sure as I face each stage. It feels right to me, though. And by that, I mean it feels right in my heart, not my head. I asked Jesus if there was more he wanted me to know about this. He brought to my mind that I am not experiencing death once per incarnation but over and over. Each time I hold onto a grievance, each time I fall into fear or guilt, each time I attack or defend, I die to any idea of life. What is not of God is not Life. I move toward Life eternal as I use time to undo these beliefs in death.

IV. The Function of Time, P 4

4 The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present. By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present. For the ego regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.

I must believe in guilt for the ego to continue to exist.

That is because I keep guilt in place by keeping the past alive in my mind. I have noticed that my mind is filled with guilty thoughts of things that occurred in the past; times when I spoke harshly, gossiped, behaved badly, was unkind and uncaring. I barely blink at the present because I am obsessed with the past.

The thought that keeps the ego in place is that if only I can be good enough now, I will compensate for the bad I did before. All the time, I am reinforcing the past, reinforcing the belief that I sinned and am therefore bad. Who has time for a present when I am so busy looking back. Where is my mind? If it is not in the now moment, I am not in the now moment, and if I am not there, it does not exist for me. If I am looking at a sinful self, I am, in my mind, guilty and therefore the ego continues to exist for me. Clever ego.

I am ready to question my use of time. I have always thought time was for the purpose of preserving the past and for keeping the ego self in place. But I think I may have been wrong, and perhaps there is another use for time. The new practice is noticing the mind’s tendency to wander into the past and bring it back to the present.

I have approached this idea before, and it failed because I was not ready.

I had so much guilt in my mind that I did not think I was worth this consistent effort. It seemed too much and after trying for a while, I let my mind have its way. I think now that I am ready to do this. I am ready to approach this issue again, and this time from the perspective of the ego attempt to continue to exist.

It is not my guilt that must be undone, but the ego belief in my guilt. I cannot be guilty because I was not created guilty.  I am simply looking at a tiny mad idea and remembering to laugh at it. AndI know this can be done. And I know I can do it. I feel resistance as I say this, but it is not my resistance, only the ego’s. I am not the ego; I am God’s holy Son. recognizes what is valuable and wants to accept nothing else.

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