Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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16 The Atonement is in time but not for time. Being in you, it is
eternal. What holds remembrance of God cannot be bound by time. No more
are you. For unless God is bound, you cannot be. An instant offered to
the Holy Spirit is offered to God on your behalf, and in that instant
you will awaken gently in Him. In the blessed instant, you will let go
all your past learning, and the Holy Spirit will quickly offer you the
whole lesson of peace. What can take time, when all the obstacles to
learning it have been removed? Truth is so far beyond time that all of
it happens at once. For as it was created one, so its oneness depends
not on time at all.
17 Do not be concerned with time and fear not the instant of holiness
which will remove all fear. For the instant of peace is eternal
because it is wholly without fear. It will come, being the lesson
God gives you through the Teacher He has appointed to translate time
into eternity. Blessed is God’s Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God’s
holy Son his holiness. His joy is not contained in time. His teaching is
for you because His joy is yours. Through Him you stand before God’s
altar, where He gently translates hell into Heaven. For it is only in
Heaven that God would have you be.
18 How long can it take to be where God would have you? For you are
where you have forever been and will forever be. All that you have, you
have forever. The blessed instant reaches out to encompass time, as God
extends Himself to encompass you. You who have spent days, hours, and
even years in chaining your brothers to your egos in an attempt to
support it and uphold its weakness, do not perceive the Source of
strength. In the holy instant, you will unchain all your brothers
and refuse to support either their weakness or your own.
19 You do not realize how much you have misused your brothers by seeing
them as sources of ego support. As a result, they witness to the ego
in your perception and seem to provide reasons for not letting it go.
Yet they are far stronger and much more compelling witnesses for the
Holy Spirit. And they support His strength. It is, therefore, your
choice whether they support the ego or the Holy Spirit in you. And you
will know which you have chosen by their reactions. A Son of God who
has been released through the Holy Spirit in a brother, if the release
is complete, is always recognized. He cannot be denied. As long as
you remain uncertain, it can be only because you have not given complete
release. And because of this, you have not given one single instant
completely to the Holy Spirit. For when you have, you will be sure
you have. You will be sure because the witness to Him will speak so
clearly of Him that you will hear and understand.
20 You will doubt until you hear one witness whom you have wholly
released through the Holy Spirit. And then you will doubt no more. The
holy instant has not yet happened to you. Yet it will, and you will
recognize it with perfect certainty. No gift of God is recognized in any
other way. You can practice the mechanics of the holy instant and will
learn much from doing so. Yet its shining and glittering brilliance,
which will literally blind you to this world by its own vision, you
cannot supply. And here it is, all in this instant, complete,
accomplished, and given wholly.
21 Start now to practice your little part in separating out the holy
instant. You will receive very specific instructions as you go along. To
learn to separate out this single second and begin to experience it as
timeless, is to begin to experience yourself as not separate. Fear not
that you will not be given help in this. God’s Teacher and His lesson
will support your strength. It is only your weakness that will depart
from you in this practice, for it is the practice of the power of God in
you. Use it but for one instant, and you will never deny it again. Who
can deny the Presence of what the universe bows to in appreciation and
gladness? Before the recognition of the universe which witnesses to It,
your doubts must disappear.