V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 1
1 The holy instant is the Holy Spirit’s most useful learning device for teaching you love’s meaning. For its purpose is to suspend judgment entirely. Judgment always rests on the past, for past experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for without it you do not understand anything. You would make no attempt to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not understand what anything means. You are afraid of this because you believe that without the ego, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love.
Journal
This is a perfect paragraph for me this morning as I am doing the lessons again and am on Lesson 8, “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.” Because of this practice, I am keenly aware of this phenomenon. A few moments ago, I noticed my tub was slow to drain, and immediately, I had a cascade of thoughts about this, which led me to make a decision about calling the plumber this morning. I had worry thoughts, anger thoughts, and resentment thoughts.
Here are some of the thoughts I had. The plumbers were supposed to have come out already and given me an estimate on fixing this problem once and for all and they didn’t. Now I might have to get them out to unclog things before they do the job. I already paid them $500.00 last month to come out repeatedly and maybe this is going to start all over again this month. What if the cost for the job is more than I have? Should I try a different plumbing company?
All of these are judgments and all of them are a preoccupation with the past. And I can’t have peace of mind and have these judgments. I notice that it is hard for me to take my mind off of possible scenarios, all of which are based on past thoughts and all of which are judgments. But I want the holy instant, and I know that worry and irritability are not going to get that for me. I know that nothing good is going to come from dwelling on past thoughts and getting irritated because I am not getting my way.
So I am looking at this paragraph carefully. Jesus says that the holy instant is the Holy Spirit’s most useful learning device for teaching you love’s meaning. Ok. I want this and I am willing to do what is required in order to have it. Jesus says that in order to have it, I must suspend judgment entirely and that judgment rests on past experience. That was how I judged, looking at what happened before and letting that experience guide my thoughts about the present.
So, I will let go of all thoughts about my past experience with this plumbing problem. I will empty my mind of those thoughts and begin with a blank slate. Right now, what is happening? Nothing. What might happen? I don’t know. If something happens with my plumbing what will I do about it? I don’t know. What I feel right now is peace. The ego doesn’t like this and keeps suggesting possibilities, but I keep turning away from that.
I have done this before, where I let go of deciding for myself and it has worked out very well. It flies in the face of what we think of as common sense, and the ego mind becomes frantic to find solutions. But I have seen that it is possible to stay calm and unaffected by the ego mind. I have had experiences where the solution fell easily into my mind at the moment I needed it.
I don’t know what all of these plumbing problems mean, and I am not using my ego mind to figure it out. Jesus says that I am afraid to let go of past thoughts and to let go of ego thinking about the problem because I believe that without the ego, all would be chaos. Oh yes, that is exactly what the ego mind thinks. But Jesus assures me that without the ego all would be love. I am willing to trust my elder brother on this.
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