³The holy instant is the opposite of the ego’s fixed belief in salvation through vengeance for the past. ⁴In the holy instant it is understood that the past is gone, and with its passing the drive for vengeance has been uprooted and has disappeared. ⁵The stillness and the peace of _now_ enfold you in perfect gentleness. ⁶Everything is gone except the truth.
What God has given you is truly given, and will be truly received. ²For God’s gifts have no reality apart from your receiving them. ³Your receiving completes His giving. ⁴You will receive because it is His Will to give. ⁵He gave the holy instant to be given you, and it is impossible that you receive it not because He gave it. ⁶When He willed that His Son be free, His Son was free. ⁷In the holy instant is His reminder that His Son will always be exactly as he was created. ⁸And everything the Holy Spirit teaches is to remind you that you have received what God has given you.
There is nothing you can hold against reality. ²All that must be forgiven are the illusions you have held against your brothers. ³Their reality has no past, and only illusions can be forgiven. ⁴God holds nothing against anyone, for He is incapable of illusions of any kind. ⁵Release your brothers from the slavery of their illusions by forgiving them for the illusions you perceive in them. (A Course in Miracles, T-16.VII.6:3-6;8:1–9:5. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)
Vengeance is the ego’s version of salvation. It can only be justified if we believe the past is real. This belief is essential to maintain the seeming existence of the ego. It is why the ego’s world is filled with conflict for which it sees no end. In the history of the ego’s world, there has never been a time when there was no conflict.
The only way out of the ego’s recurring cycles of conflict is to learn that the past is not real. God has given us the holy instant in which we can experience the reality of peace where the past is gone. It cannot touch us. In that holy instant, we have forgiven the past and let the eternal presence of Love return to our awareness.
Forgiveness is our salvation from the ego’s world. It opens our awareness to the real world, where Love is recognized as all that is real. Today we welcome the Holy Spirit’s help to lead us to the holy instant in which we have forgiven an illusion of a past and accept the Reality of Love.
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