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Chapter 16: The Holy Instant

2. Separating Out the Holy Instant from Time

The Atonement is in time, but not for time. Being for you, It is for the Eternal. What holds Remembrance of the Divine cannot be bound by time, just as you can’t. For unless the Divine were bound, you cannot be. An Instant offered to the Holy Spirit is offered to the Divine on your behalf, and in that Instant you will awaken gently in the Divine. In this blessed Instant you will let go of all your past learning, and the Holy Spirit will quickly offer you the whole Lesson of Peace.

What can take time when all the obstacles to learning the one Lesson you need to learn have been removed? Truth is so far beyond time that all of It happens at once. For as It was created One, so Its Oneness depends not on time at all. Be not concerned with time, and fear not the Instant of Holiness that will remove all fear. For the Instant of Peace is eternal because It is wholly without fear. Being the Lesson the Divine gives you, it will come through the Teacher It has appointed to translate time into Eternity.

Blessed is the Divine’s Teacher, Whose Joy is to teach the Divine’s holy Children their holiness. Spirit’s Joy is not contained in time. Its Teaching is for you because Its Joy is yours. Through It, you stand before the Divine’s Altar, where It gently translates the delusion of hell into the Reality of Heaven. For it is only in Heaven that the Divine would have you be. How long in time can it take to be where the Divine would have you? For you are where you have forever been, and will forever be. All that you truly have, you have forever. The blessed Instant reaches out to encompass time, as the Divine extends Itself to encompass you.

You who have spent days and years attempting to chain your sisters and brothers to your ego, in an effort to support it and uphold its weakness, do not yet perceive your Source of Strength. In the Holy Instant you will unchain all of your sisters and brothers, and refuse to support either their weakness or your own. You do not realize how much you have misused your sisters and brothers by looking upon them as sources of ego support. As a result, in your perception they witness to your ego, and seem to provide reasons for not letting it go. Yet they are far stronger and much more compelling witnesses for the Holy Spirit, and as Its Witnesses they support Its Strength in themselves and in you.

It is, therefore, your choice whether your sisters and brothers support the ego or the Holy Spirit in you. And you will know which you have chosen by their reactions. Children of the Divine who have been released through the Holy Spirit in you are always recognized, if their release is complete. Their release cannot be denied. As long as you remain uncertain about their release, it can be only because you have not given them complete release. And this will mean that you have not yet given one single instant completely to the Holy Spirit. For when you have, you will be sure you have. You will be sure because Spirit’s Witnesses – your released sisters and brothers – will speak so clearly of It that you will hear and understand. You will doubt until you hear one witness whom you have wholly released from fear through the Holy Spirit. And then you will doubt no more.

As long as you still doubt, the Holy Instant has not yet happened to you. But It will, and you will recognize It with perfect Certainty. Every Gift of the Divine is recognized in this way. You can practice the mechanics of the Holy Instant, and will learn much from doing so. But Its shining and glittering Brilliance, which will literally remove your perception of this world by Its own Vision, you cannot supply. Yet here It is, all in this Instant, complete, accomplished, and given wholly.

Start now to practice your little part in separating out the Holy Instant from time. You will receive very specific instructions as you go along. To learn to separate out this single moment, and begin to experience it as timeless, is to begin to experience yourself as not separate, but wholly joined. Trust that you will receive the Help you need in this. The Divine’s Teacher and Its Lesson will support your Strength. It is only your weakness that will depart from you in this practice, for it is the practice of the Power of the Divine in you. Use this Power just for one Instant and you will never deny It again. Who can deny the Presence of what the Universe bows to with Gratitude and Gladness? Before the Recognition of the Universe, Which witnesses to the Power of the Divine in you, your doubts will disappear.