Shadows of the Past

Chapter 17 – 3. Shadows of the Past

To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the
past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten.
 
Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection. For the
shadow figures you would make immortal are “enemies” of reality. Be
willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do. The shadow
figures are the witnesses you bring with you to demonstrate he did what he
did not. Because you bring them, you will hear them. And you who keep
them by your own selection do not understand how they came into your
mind, and what their purpose is. They represent the evil that you think was
done to you. You bring them with you only that you may return evil for
evil, hoping that their witness will enable you to think guiltily of another
and not harm yourself. They speak so clearly for the separation that no one
not obsessed with keeping separation could hear them. They offer you the
“reasons” why you should enter into unholy alliances to support the ego’s
goals, and make your relationships the witness to its power.
 
It is these shadow figures that would make the ego holy in your sight, and
teach you what you do to keep it safe is really love. The shadow figures
always speak for vengeance, and all relationships into which they enter are
totally insane. Without exception, these relationships have as their purpose
the exclusion of the truth about the other, and of yourself. This is why you
see in both what is not there, and make of both the slaves of vengeance.
 
And why whatever reminds you of your past grievances attracts you, and
seems to go by the name of love, no matter how distorted the associations
by which you arrive at the connection may be. And finally, why all such
relationships become attempts at union through the body, for only bodies
can be seen as means for vengeance. That bodies are central to all unholy
relationships is evident. Your own experience has taught you this. But what
you may not realize are all the reasons that go to make the relationship
unholy. For unholiness seeks to reinforce itself, as holiness does, by
gathering to itself what it perceives as like itself.
 
In the unholy relationship, it is not the body of the other with which union is
attempted, but the bodies of those who are not there. For even the body of
the other, already a severely limited perception of him, is not the central
focus as it is, or in entirety. What can be used for fantasies of vengeance,
and what can be most readily associated with those on whom vengeance is
really sought, is centered on and separated off as being the only parts of
value. Every step taken in the making, the maintaining and the breaking off
of the unholy relationship is a move toward further fragmentation and
unreality. The shadow figures enter more and more, and the one in whom
they seem to be decreases in importance.
 
Time is indeed unkind to the unholy relationship. For time is cruel in the
ego’s hands, as it is kind when used for gentleness. The attraction of the
unholy relationship begins to fade and to be questioned almost at once.
 
Once it is formed, doubt must enter in, because its purpose is impossible.
The “ideal” of the unholy relationship thus becomes one in which the reality
of the other does not enter at all to “spoil” the dream. And the less the other
really brings to the relationship, the “better” it becomes. Thus, the attempt at
union becomes a way of excluding even the one with whom the union was
sought. For it was formed to get him out of it, and join with fantasies in
uninterrupted “bliss. “
 
How can the Holy Spirit bring his interpretation of the body as a means of
communication into relationships whose only purpose is separation from
reality? What forgiveness is enables him to do so. If all but loving thoughts
have been forgotten, what remains is eternal. And the transformed past is
made like the present. No longer does the past conflict with now. This
continuity extends the present by increasing its reality and its value in your
perception of it. In these loving thoughts is the spark of beauty hidden in the
ugliness of the unholy relationship where hatred is remembered; yet there to
come alive as the relationship is given to him who gives it life and beauty.
 
That is why Atonement centers on the past, which is the source of
separation, and where it must be undone. For separation must be corrected
where it was made.
 
The ego seeks to “resolve” its problems, not at their source, but where they
were not made. And thus it seeks to guarantee there will be no solution. The
 
Holy Spirit wants only to make his resolutions complete and perfect, and so
he seeks and finds the source of problems where it is, and there undoes it.
 
And with each step in his undoing is the separation more and more undone,
and union brought closer. he is not at all confused by any “reasons” for
separation. All he perceives in separation is that it must be undone. Let him
uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships, and show it to
you. Its loveliness will so attract you that you will be unwilling ever to lose
the sight of it again. And you will let this spark transform the relationship so
you can see it more and more. For you will want it more and more, and
become increasingly unwilling to let it be hidden from you. And you will
learn to seek for and establish the conditions in which this beauty can be
seen.
 
All this you will do gladly, if you but let him hold the spark before you, to
light your way and make it clear to you. God’s Son is One. Whom God has
joined as one, the ego cannot put asunder. The spark of holiness must be
safe, however hidden it may be, in every relationship. For the Creator of the
one relationship has left no part of it without himself. This is the only part
of the relationship the Holy Spirit sees, because he knows that only this is
true. You have made the relationship unreal, and therefore unholy, by
seeing it where it is not and as it is not. Give the past to him who can
change your mind about it for you. But first, be sure you fully realize what
you have made the past to represent, and why.
 
The past becomes the justification for entering into a continuing, unholy
alliance with the ego against the present. For the present is forgiveness.
 
Therefore, the relationships the unholy alliance dictates are not perceived
nor felt as now. Yet the frame of reference to which the present is referred
for meaning is an illusion of the past, in which those elements that fit the
purpose of the unholy alliance are retained, and all the rest let go. And what
is thus let go is all the truth the past could ever offer to the present as
witnesses for its reality. What is kept but witnesses to the reality of dreams.
 
It is still up to you to choose to join with truth or with illusion. But
remember that to choose one is to let the other go. Which one you choose
you will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice depends on
which you value more. The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real
world or the world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery–it
is all the same. For you can never choose except between God and the ego.
 
Thought systems are but true or false, and all their attributes come simply
from what they are. Only the Thoughts of God are true. And all that follows
from them comes from what they are, and is as true as is the holy Source
from which they came.
 
My holy brother, I would enter into all your relationships, and step between
you and your fantasies. Let my relationship to you be real to you, and let me
bring reality to your perception of your brothers. They were not created to
enable you to hurt yourself through them. They were created to create with
you. This is the truth that I would interpose between you and your goal of
madness. Be not separate from me, and let not the holy purpose of
 
Atonement be lost to you in dreams of vengeance. Relationships in which
such dreams are cherished have excluded me. Let me enter in the Name of
God and bring you peace, that you may offer peace to me.