Practicing the Holy Instant

Chapter 15 – 4. Practicing the Holy Instant

This course is not beyond immediate learning, unless you believe that what
God wills takes time. And this means only that you would rather delay the
recognition that His Will is so. The holy instant is this instant and every
instant. The one you want it to be it is. The one you would not have it be is
lost to you. You must decide when it is. Delay it not. For beyond the past
and future, where you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for
your acceptance. Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do
not want it, for it holds the whole release from littleness.
 
Your practice must therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness
go. The instant in which magnitude dawns upon you is but as far away as
your desire for it. As long as you desire it not and cherish littleness instead,
by so much is it far from you. By so much as you want it will you bring it
nearer. Think not that you can find salvation in your own way and have it.
 
Give over every plan you have made for your salvation in exchange for
God’s. His will content you, and nothing else can bring you peace. For
peace is of God, and no one beside Him.
 
Be humble before Him, and yet great in Him. And value no plan of the ego
before the plan of God. For you leave empty your place in His plan, which
you must fill if you would join with me, by your decision to join in any plan
but His. I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to
the world for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in
perfect freedom. Every allegiance to a plan of salvation apart from Him
diminishes the value of His Will for you in your own mind. And yet it is
your mind that is the host to Him.
 
Would you learn how perfect and immaculate is the holy altar on which
your Father has placed Himself? This you will recognize in the holy instant,
in which you willingly and gladly give over every plan but His. For there
lies peace, perfectly clear because you have been willing to meet its
conditions. You can claim the holy instant any time and anywhere you want
it. In your practice, try to give over every plan you have accepted for
finding magnitude in littleness. It is not there. Use the holy instant only to
recognize that you alone cannot know where it is, and can only deceive
yourself.
 
I stand within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me. And the
extent to which you learn to accept me is the measure of the time in which
the holy instant will be yours. I call to you to make the holy instant yours at
once, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of God depends
on willingness, and not on time.
 
The reason this course is simple is that truth is simple. Complexity is of the
ego, and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure the obvious. You
could live forever in the holy instant, beginning now and reaching to
eternity, but for a very simple reason. Do not obscure the simplicity of this
reason, for if you do, it will be only because you prefer not to recognize it
and not to let it go. The simple reason, simply stated, is this: The holy
instant is a time in which you receive and give perfect communication. This
means, however, that it is a time in which your mind is open, both to
receive and give. It is the recognition that all minds are in communication.
 
It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything.
 
How can you do this when you would prefer to have private thoughts and
keep them? The only way you could do that would be to deny the perfect
communication that makes the holy instant what it is. You believe you can
harbor thoughts you would not share, and that salvation lies in keeping
thoughts to yourself alone. For in private thoughts, known only to yourself,
you think you find a way to keep what you would have alone, and share
what you would share. And then you wonder why it is that you are not in
full communication with those around you, and with God Who surrounds
all of you together.
 
Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, because
you would have it so. It is impossible to recognize perfect communication
while breaking communication holds value to you. Ask yourself honestly,
“Would I want to have perfect communication, and am I wholly willing to
let everything that interferes with it go forever? “If the answer is no, then
the Holy Spirit’s readiness to give it to you is not enough to make it yours,
for you are not ready to share it with Him. And it cannot come into a mind
that has decided to oppose it. For the holy instant is given and received with
equal willingness, being the acceptance of the single Will that governs all
thought.
 
The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have
no thoughts that are not pure. But it does require that you have none that
you would keep. Innocence is not of your making. It is given you the instant
you would have it. Atonement would not be if there were no need for it.
 
You will not be able to accept perfect communication as long as you would
hide it from yourself. For what you would hide is hidden from you. In your
practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception, and seek not to
protect the thoughts you would keep to yourself. Let the Holy Spirit’s purity
shine them away, and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity
He offers you. Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you are
host to God, and hostage to no one and to nothing.