Practicing the Holy Instant
Practicing the Holy Instant
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1. This course is not beyond immediate learning, unless website you believe that what God wills takes time. ²And this means only that you would rather delay the recognition that His Will is so. ³The holy instant is this instant and every instant. ⁴The one you want it to be it is. ⁵The one you would not have it be is lost to you. ⁶You must decide when it is. ⁷Delay it not. ⁸For beyond the past and future, where you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance. ⁹Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want it, for it holds the whole release from littleness.
2. Your practice must therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness go. ²The instant in which magnitude dawns upon you is but as far away as your desire for it. ³As long as you desire it not and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from you. ⁴By so much as you want it will you bring it nearer. ⁵Think not that you can find salvation in your own way and have it. ⁶Give over every plan you have made for your salvation in exchange for God’s. ⁷His will content you, and nothing else can bring you peace. ⁸For peace is of God, and no one beside Him.
3. Be humble before Him, and yet great _in_ Him. ²And value no plan of the ego before the plan of God. ³For you leave empty your place in His plan, which you must fill if you would join with me, by your decision to join in any plan but His. ⁴I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world for its release from littleness. ⁵God would have His host abide in perfect freedom. ⁶Every allegiance to a plan of salvation apart from Him diminishes the value of His Will for you in your own mind. ⁷And yet it is your mind that is the host to Him.
4. Would you learn how perfect and immaculate is the holy altar on which your Father has placed Himself? ²This you will recognize in the holy instant, in which you willingly and gladly give over every plan but His. ³For there lies peace, perfectly clear because you have been willing to meet its conditions. ⁴You can claim the holy instant any time and anywhere you want it. ⁵In your practice, try to give over every plan you have accepted for finding magnitude in littleness. ⁶_It is not there._ ⁷Use the holy instant only to recognize that you alone cannot know where it is, and can only deceive yourself.
5. I stand within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me. ²And the extent to which you learn to accept me is the measure of the time in which the holy instant will be yours. ³I call to you to make the holy instant yours at once, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of God depends on willingness, and not on time.
6. The reason this course is simple is that truth is simple. ²Complexity is of the ego, and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure the obvious. ³You could live forever in the holy instant, beginning now and reaching to eternity, but for a very simple reason. ⁴Do not obscure the simplicity of this reason, for if you do, it will be only because you prefer not to recognize it and not to let it go. ⁵The simple reason, simply stated, is this: The holy instant is a time in which you receive and give perfect communication. ⁶This means, however, that it is a time in which your mind is open, both to receive and give. ⁷It is the recognition that all minds are in communication. ⁸It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything. david hoffmeister acim
7. How can you do this when you would prefer to have private thoughts and keep them? ²The only way you could do that would be to deny the perfect communication that makes the holy instant what it is. ³You believe you can harbor thoughts you would not share, and that salvation lies in keeping thoughts to yourself alone. ⁴For in private thoughts, known only to yourself, you think you find a way to keep what you would have alone, and share what _you_ would share. ⁵And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those around you, and with God Who surrounds all of you together.
8. Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, because you would have it so. ²It is impossible to recognize perfect communication while breaking communication holds value to you. ³Ask yourself honestly, “Would I want to have perfect communication, and am I wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?” ⁴If the answer is no, then the Holy Spirit’s readiness to give it to you is not enough to make it yours, for you are not ready to share it with Him. ⁵And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it. ⁶For the holy instant is given and received with equal willingness, being the acceptance of the single Will that governs all thought.
9. The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure. ²But it does require that you have none that you would keep. ³Innocence is not of your making. ⁴It is given you the instant you would have it. ⁵Atonement would not be if there were no need for it. ⁶You will not be able to accept perfect communication as long as you would hide it from yourself. ⁷For what you would hide _is_ hidden from you. ⁸In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception, and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep to yourself. ⁹Let the Holy Spirit’s purity shine them away, and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity He offers you. ¹⁰Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you are host to God, and hostage to no one and to nothing. (https://acim.org/acim/en/s/193#1:1-9:10 | T-15.IV.1:1–9:10)
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