ACIM Chapter 13. IV. The Function of Time, P 5-7

ACIM Chapter 13. IV. The Function of Time, P 5-7

IV. the Function of Time, P 5

5 “Now” has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past. The ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and although the past is over, the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present. It dictates your reactions to those you meet in the present from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality. In effect, if you follow the ego’s dictates you will react to your brother as though he were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from recognizing him as he is. And you will receive messages from him out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother offers you now.

I have looked at this idea before.

I think of my nephew, and I have certain ideas about him. One time, he asked me to give him some time to talk to me. When I looked at my schedule, I saw that I only had free time early in the morning. I thought about how he hates to get up early and so would not like this time slot. I mentioned that to him, and he was surprised that I still believed that about him. He reminded me he is no longer that teenager who stayed up all night and slept in. I had a picture of him in my mind based on past behavior and was bringing that picture into the present. I cannot know who he is if I am looking at who he was.

Another example I can think of is that I have an on-again, off-again student. When we first started talking, and for a long time, he was a beginning student. He got the concepts, but without practicing those concepts, he still acted as he had before he read the Course. One time later, he called to talk to me about something particular, and I started answering his questions based on my past knowledge of him.

Then, the Holy Spirit woke me up to his responses. He was not the same person he used to be. I was stuck in the past and was missing the beauty of the present. I was speaking to who he used to be, not who he became, and so I wasn’t really talking to him at all, nor was I hearing all he had to teach me. It was a good lesson I did not forget.

IV. The Function of Time, P 6

6 The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what you must escape. They are not real, and have no hold over you unless you bring them with you. They carry the spots of pain in your mind, directing you to attack in the present in retaliation for a past that is no more. And this decision is one of future pain. Unless you learn that past pain is an illusion, you are choosing a future of illusions and losing the many opportunities you could find for release in the present. The ego would preserve your nightmares, and prevent you from awakening and understanding they are past. Would you recognize a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your own past? For you would be meeting no one, and the sharing of salvation, which makes the encounter holy, would be excluded from your sight. The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself, and the encounter is holy because you are. The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and because your dreams were not holy, the future cannot be, and the present is without meaning.

I had a remarkable experience.

In allowing the mind to slip out of the past and into the present, I had a holy encounter. I ran into a competitor at a work conference. I had always avoided him because he represented danger to me. He could take my customers, and I felt this would diminish me. So, he was the enemy to be defended against. Even when he was nice, I distrusted his behavior and felt like it was a ruse to get me talking and to reveal something he could use against me.

All this to say that I had a belief about him, and I carried it around, never questioning it and so never letting it be healed. Thus, I had no idea who he was at any moment. How could I? I shielded myself from this opportunity to know him by choosing to believe the past was real. But last week, something happened because I had been practicing the Rules for Decision so vigilantly that they had become natural and automatic.

I was walking down the aisle at the conference.

As I was checking out what was on offer, I ran into my competitor. Normally, I saw him as the enemy, the one who was a threat to my livelihood. and suddenly saw him without my past beliefs intruding on the situation. I waited for a moment to speak to him alone not knowing what I would say, only knowing that this was not my competitor, but my brother.

When I had the chance to speak to him, I told him I was retiring soon and wanted him to know that I held him in high regard. He looked very surprised and pleased. We shook hands and went on our way, forever changed. I am so blessed to have had that holy encounter instead of staying stuck in false beliefs of the past. Thank you, Jesus, for A Course in Miracles. Thank you, my brother, for your love and your help.

IV. The Function of Time, P 7

7 It is evident that the Holy Spirit’s perception of time is the exact opposite of the ego’s. The reason is equally clear, for they perceive the goal of time as diametrically opposed. The Holy Spirit interprets time’s purpose as rendering the need for time unnecessary. He regards the function of time as temporary, serving only His teaching function, which is temporary by definition. His emphasis is therefore on the only aspect of time that can extend to the infinite, for now is the closest approximation of eternity that this world offers. It is in the reality of “now,” without past or future, that the beginning of the appreciation of eternity lies. For only “now” is here, and only “now” presents the opportunities for the holy encounters in which salvation can be found.

The idea of time is interesting.

We can use time to daydream, to get things done, to worry, or to regret what was done. We can use it to get an endless stream of things in the hopes of gaining a sense of fulfillment and to give meaning to life. Time can be spent going from one shallow relationship to the next, looking for love and a sense of belonging. These are the uses the ego puts to time. They are the way we waste time because they bring only temporary results at best. At worst, they bring suffering.

Jesus encourages us to use time on behalf of salvation, which is the only worthwhile goal while we believe we are here. To do this, we need to recognize that we have not only misused time, we don’t understand time at all. We think time marches along in a linear fashion. It started eons ago and can be plotted along a line. This seems to make it possible for us to revisit the past, and we seem to be enthralled by the idea. We keep pictures of the moments of our lives and store them in albums or on hard drives so we can revisit these past memories. We open museums dedicated to the past and visit them, staring at the relics of the past in awe.

I used to be the family historian, the one who took pictures on every occasion and on each vacation. I have so many pictures stored away in boxes. On my phone alone, I have 10,000 pictures, and these are all current. It is as if life can be caught in snapshots and stored away in anticipation of the moment life fails to interest me. I can live in the past when it seemed more exciting.

There is another way we use time that is more than a waste of it.

This way of using time guarantees that time never ends, and thus, our separation stories remain in memory so we can pretend to live them over and over. This is because we are so determined to keep the stories going that we agree to suffer through the awful parts, eagerly relive the exciting bits, and cry our way through the sad ones. We even revisit the stories that are deeply depressing and discouraging. We do this over and over, watching the time movies, getting lost in them, believing they are really happening to us rather than for us.

How do we stop this endless loop of nothing tragically appearing as something? And it is tragic. We could actually live as the joyful, loving Self we are. We could become aware of Life in God instead of placing our awareness on the stories of separation. And we can make this switch any time we choose. It is as easy as shifting your vision from one object to another. We do it all the time. We do it with our eyes, and we can do it with vision as well. Why do we not do it?

I don’t know. Maybe we are afraid that we will miss the drama. Perhaps it is because we cannot imagine infinite joy and so find it hard to accept the possibility as true. Maybe we have done so much we regret that we are afraid to come out of the theatre of our experience and face what consequences we imagine waiting for us. I am ready to put this all aside and take Jesus’ word that our Creator eternally and completely loves us and that it is safe to go Home. I am certainly convinced that I am sick of the stories.

So, I am doing this one step at a time as guided by Jesus.

I notice that I am daydreaming about my story taking a preferred turn, and I stop that daydream by looking at it with the Holy Spirit. I want to be done with them, and He will heal the mind that still longs for the dream that will finally satisfy. It is really easy to do this because my only part is to look with Him with a desire to be free of the dream.

When I become angry or resentful of a fellow soul, instead of fantasizing about a different outcome, I feel the anger and resentment with the Holy Spirit with a desire to be free. That’s it. When I call up a painful memory, and I do call it up because that is the only way I could have it, I reconsider. Do I really want to experience the pain and suffering again? What do I hope to accomplish? Am I punishing myself with it? Am I hoping to fantasize a different outcome? I let myself rest in God as it all passes through my mind because only a sick mind could make these choices, and now I want a healed mind.

Doing this repeatedly has brought me a measure of peace I have never experienced before.

And that peace is worthy of my time. More importantly, it has convinced me that it is possible to stop living in the past or imagining a future. This leaves me free to live now. Now has become the place I free myself. A past thought shows up, and I forgive it now. My mind wanders to a different future now, and I forgive it now. This still requires my vigilance, and I still fall back into imagining that time existed anywhere but now. But I am getting better at this all the time, and so I am becoming free of time. It is pretty exciting!

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