I. GUILTLESSNESS AND INVULNERABILITY, P 3
3 As you look upon yourself and judge what you do honestly, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless. Yet consider this: You are not guiltless in time, but in eternity. You have “sinned” in the past, but there is no past. Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end it will roll up like a long carpet spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it is.
Journal
This idea of timelessness is hard for me to understand. I am so mired in time, that I cannot really imagine timelessness even though Jesus assures me that this is the truth. The idea of the carpet is really helpful. As long as I believe in guilt, I walk along this imaginary carpet of time, believing that it is leading me to death. When I let go of the belief in guilt, the carpet of time rolls up and disappears.
I am on this endless journey through time and time doesn’t exist. My mind boggles when I think of it this way. What is really helpful is that I am given a way for the journey through time to end even if I don’t fully understand or accept timelessness. I let go of the belief in guilt and it is done. The ego insists on guilt, and justifies this insistence by pointing out all the evil that I have done and others have done.
The Holy Spirit answers that idea with the assurance that what happened in the past does not exist because the past does not exist. If I hurt someone in this instant, a breath later, less than a breath later, that action is past and it is no more. I can keep the error real only if I insist that guilt is real. Insisting that guilt is real, I am insisting that time is real also, because I cannot have one without the other. I let go of guilt and time goes with it and I have only eternity. In eternity there is only innocence.
I had a situation where I was absolutely sure my boss was upset with me. I worried and fretted over it. I projected my feelings onto him, certain he was guilty of treating me unfairly and was responsible for my upset. I built this story up to monumental proportions and it occupied my mind all day long. I alternately felt guilty and then saw him as the guilty party. I was miserable.
Then I heard something that made me realize that I was completely wrong. My boss wasn’t upset with me at all. The entire scenario came from a misunderstood remark and was meaningless. It had no reality at all. While I was focused on the false belief that was all I could see or imagine. When I accepted it was false, it disappeared. Right now I have the memory of it having happened, but I couldn’t tell you anything about the details. It folded up like that carpet of time and disappeared because I lost interest in it.
If we keep staring at our guilt, nourishing it with our belief and our attention, it will remain as if true and it will drag us through misery, pain and to death. If, on the other hand, we notice the guilty thoughts and feelings, remember that guilt can never be true no matter what the appearance, the Holy Spirit will heal our mind. Then, like my story of the angry boss, it will roll up and disappear. Eternity is our home, not time. Eternity is the guiltless moment in which we exist until we change our mind and return to guilt.
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