Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 5: Understanding the Holy Spirit’s Purpose
7. The Case before the Heavenly Court
The continuing decision, conscious or unconscious, to remain separated is the only possible reason for continued guilt feelings. This was said before when it was stated that guilt feelings show that you believe you can think apart from the Divine, and want to, but the destructive results of this decision were not emphasized at the time. Any decision of the mind will affect both behavior and experience. And what you will you expect. This is not delusional. Your mind does create your future, and can turn it to full creativity any moment it truly accepts Atonement. It will turn to full creativity the Instant it has done so. Having given up its thought disorder, the proper ordering of thought becomes quite apparent.
The Divine in Its timeless Knowledge does not wait. But the Realm of Heaven is missing you while you wait. All the Children of the Divine 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 in Eternity, and have therefore changed your mind regarding your status as a creator. But election is both free and alterable. You do not belong in time. Your Home is only in Eternity, where the Divine Itself placed you forever.
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 ego’s continuity, and gives it a false sense of security through the belief that you cannot release yourself from this cycle. But you can and must. The Divine offers you the Continuity of Eternity in exchange. When you will to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for Peace, fear for Love, and pain for Joy.
My role is only to unchain your will and set it free. Your ego cannot accept Freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment and in every possible way. And as the ego’s maker you know what it can do, because you gave it the ability to do it. The mind does indeed know its Power, because the mind knows its Creator. Remember the Realm of Heaven always, and remember that you who are eternally Part of It cannot be lost. The mind that was in me is in you, for the Divine creates with perfect Fairness. Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of this Fairness, and let me teach you how to share It with our sisters and brothers. How else can the opportunity to receive It for yourself be given you?
What you do not yet understand is that the two voices, the Holy Spirit and the ego, speak for different interpretations of the same thing, and do so simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until the first interpretation was made, and speaking itself was unnecessary before the ego was made. The ego speaks in judgment, and the Holy Spirit reverses its decisions, much as a nation’s highest court has the power to reverse a lower court’s decision about the laws of their land.
The ego’s decisions are always wrong because they are based on a complete fallacy – that the Children of the Divine can be separate from the Divine or from each other – which these decisions are made to uphold. Nothing the ego perceives can therefore be interpreted correctly by the split mind that made the ego. Not only does the ego cite sacred words for its purposes, but it even interprets these as a witness for itself. Because of its prejudiced judgment of doom, even sacred text becomes a fearful thing to the ego, and its interpretation of this text is a fearful thing to those accepting it. Perceiving it as fearful, it interprets it fearfully. Having been made afraid by the ego’s interpretation of all things, you do not appeal to the highest of all courts, the Heavenly Court, in the face of the ego’s misinterpretations and judgments against you, because you believe Its Judgment would also be against you.
A few examples will suffice to show how the ego’s misinterpretations have frightened and misled many who misunderstood the meaning of the words. A favorite ego quotation is, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” Another is “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord,” which we discussed previously. Still another is, “I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and the fourth generation.” And also, “The wicked shall perish.” There are many other statements in sacred texts that have been interpreted as fearful, but if you will let the Holy Spirit reinterpret these in Its Own Light, a new meaning will emerge.
“As you sow, so shall you reap” merely means that what you believe to be worth cultivating you will cultivate and harvest in yourself. Your judgment or assessment of what is worthy does make it worthy for you.
“Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord” is easily understood without fear if you remember that ideas increase only by being shared. This passage 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 the Divine.
“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 the ego’s survival beyond the life and death of the physical body of its host. Actually, all it really means is that the Holy Spirit in later generations always has the Power to interpret correctly what former generations have misthought, and thus release such thoughts from the ability to produce fear anywhere in the human family.
“The wicked shall perish” is merely a statement of fact if the words “wicked” and “perish” are properly understood. Every loveless thought must be undone. Even the word “undone” is fearful to the ego, which interprets “undone” as “destroyed.” As was discussed earlier, the ego will not be destroyed, because it is part of your thought. But because it is uncreative, and therefore unsharing, it will be reinterpreted entirely to release you from fear. The part of your thought that you have given to the ego will merely return to the Realm of Heaven, where your whole mind belongs eternally. The ego is a form of arrest from Reality, but arrest is merely delay. It need not involve the concept of earthly law enforcement at all, although the ego welcomes that interpretation because of its fear connotations. You can delay the Completion of the Realm, but you cannot introduce the concept of assault into what is forever peaceful.
When I said, “I am come as a light into the world,” I surely came to share this Light with you. Remember the symbolic reference this Course made before to the ego’s dark glass, and also the suggestion not to look there. It will always be true that “where you seek to find yourself is up to you.” The Heavenly Court will never condemn you. It will merely dismiss the case against you. There can be no case against a Child of the Divine, and every witness to guilt in the Divine’s Creations is bearing false witness to the Divine Itself. Gladly appeal everything you believe to the Divine’s Own Heavenly Court, because It speaks for the Divine, and therefore speaks truly. It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully the ego has built it. The case may be foolproof, but it is not Divine-proof. The Voice of the Divine will not hear it at all because It can only witness truly. Its Verdict will always be, “Yours is the Realm of Heaven,” because the Voice was given you to remind you of what you are.
Your patience with your sisters and brothers is your patience with yourself. Is not a Child of the Divine worth patience? I have shown all my sisters and brothers, including you, infinite Patience, because my will is that of our Creator, from whom I learned of infinite Patience. Its Voice was in me as a human being, as it is in you, speaking for Patience toward the Divine Family 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 renders time unnecessary.
To say that “time is temporary” is either merely redundant or a good pun. This Course has repeatedly stated that time is a learning device that will be abolished when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning. The Holy Spirit, Who in the world of time speaks for the Divine, also knows that time is meaningless in Eternity and Reality. It reminds you of this in every passing moment of time, because it is Its Function to return you to Eternity and remain forever with you to bless your creations there. The Holy Spirit is the only blessing you can truly give, because It is so truly blessed. And because It has been given you so freely by the Divine, you must give It as you have received It.
