I. The Two Uses of Time, P 5
5 The ego teaches that Heaven is here and now because the future is hell. Even when it attacks so savagely that it tries to take the life of someone who thinks its is the only voice, it speaks of hell even to him. For it tells him hell is here as well, and bids him leap from hell into oblivion. The only time the ego allows anyone to look upon with equanimity is the past. And even there, its only value is that it is no more.
Journal
I was wondering how it is that the ego teaches that Heaven is here and now. I suppose that would be a special relationship when all is going well. Or maybe special talents could be considered a heavenly experience, a great singer or athlete, a successful artist or writer. Maybe having a great deal of money or stature within your world could make you feel like this was Heaven. As I am considering these possibilities, I am aware of how easily this kind of heavenly experience could turn into a hellish one. This is a typical ego gift, shifting and undependable.
I have experienced the ego’s attacks that could drive one to suicide or at least the wish for it to be over. And all of us here are moving inevitably toward death. This is when the ego switches tactics and tells us that this may have been Heaven for awhile, but now it is hell. It offers us heartbreaking loss, perhaps poverty or sickness. Without a doubt, it offers guilt and fear, sometimes to the point of debilitating mental illness. The only surcease that is offered is oblivion, which, I suppose, has an advantage over eternal punishment that is its alternative future.
Before I became aware that I could choose to listen to another Voice, I heard mostly ego, and thus suffered from depression. I was suicidal at times, and that doesn’t surprise me. I am only surprised that I was able to function at all, and that I chose to live. I still hear the ego encouraging death and oblivion sometimes, but now I know the Voice for God and I don’t pay a lot of attention to the ego’s voice. In fact, recognizing the ego for what it is, I find its attempts to entice me to death uninteresting.
The ego doesn’t seem to care if I focus on the past. Probably this is because the past doesn’t exist and so when my mind is on the past, it is on nothing. There is no threat to the ego while I am living in the past because that means I am not waking up to the present moment, the only time that exists. More and more, I realize that as long as I am lost in my story, I am living in the past. This is an old story, long over. I am just thinking about it, reliving it in my mind. What could that be but living in the past and this is where the ego would have me.
The ego’s use for time is depressing and unproductive. It has only one purpose for time and that is in keeping the separation idea going. It wants to preserve the stories we made up not heal the mind that thought them. This is why I stay connected to the Holy Spirit throughout the day. I am learning to hear His Voice rather than ego, to look at the stories as ways to awaken from the dream of separation rather than as problems to be overcome. We made time and the ego uses it to preserve what we made, but the Holy Spirit has a different use for time. He uses it to undo the idea of time, and return our awareness to eternity where we are.
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