The Function of Time

Chapter 13 – 5 – The Function of Time

And now the reason why you are afraid of this course should be apparent.
 
For this is a course on love, because it is about you. You have been told that
your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is
creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and you
have no function at all in Heaven. It would thus destroy you here and bury
you here, leaving you no inheritance except the dust out of which it thinks
you were made. As long as it is reasonably satisfied with you, as its
reasoning goes, it offers you oblivion. When it becomes overtly savage, it
offers you hell.
 
Yet neither oblivion nor hell is as unacceptable to you as Heaven. Your
definition of Heaven is hell and oblivion, and the real Heaven is the greatest
threat you think you could experience. For hell and oblivion are ideas that
you made up, and you are bent on demonstrating their reality to establish
yours. If their reality is questioned, you believe that yours is. For you
believe that attack is your reality, and that your destruction is the final proof
that you were right.
 
Under the circumstances, would it not be more desirable to have been
wrong, even apart from the fact that you were wrong? While it could
perhaps be argued that death suggests there was life, no one would claim
that it proves there is life. Even the past life that death might indicate, could
only have been futile if it must come to this, and needs this to prove that it
was at all. You question Heaven, but you do not question this yet. You
could heal and be healed if you did question it. And even though you know
not Heaven, might it not be more desirable than death? You have been as
selective in your questioning as in your perception. An open mind is more
honest than this.
 
The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your
questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the
end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful.
 
Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by
making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present. By the notion
of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the
future, making them continuous without an intervening present. For the ego
regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings
the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.
 
“Now” has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past
hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past. The ego cannot
tolerate release from the past, and although the past is over, the ego tries to
preserve its image by responding as if it were present. It dictates your
reactions to those you meet in the present from a past reference point,
obscuring their present reality. In effect, if you follow the ego’s dictates you
will react to your brother as though he were someone else, and this will
surely prevent you from recognizing him as he is. And you will receive
messages from him out of your own past because, by making it real in the
present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the
message of release that every brother offers you now.
 
The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what you must escape.
 
They are not real, and have no hold over you unless you bring them with
you. They carry the spots of pain in your mind, directing you to attack in the
present in retaliation for a past that is no more. And this decision is one of
future pain. Unless you learn that past pain is an illusion, you are choosing a
future of illusions and losing the many opportunities you could find for
release in the present. The ego would preserve your nightmares, and prevent
you from awakening and understanding they are past. Would you recognize
a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your own
past? For you would be meeting no one, and the sharing of salvation, which
makes the encounter holy, would be excluded from your sight. The Holy
Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself, and the encounter is holy
because you are. The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and
because your dreams were not holy, the future cannot be, and the present is
without meaning.
 
It is evident that the Holy Spirit’s perception of time is the exact opposite of
the ego’s. The reason is equally clear, for they perceive the goal of time as
diametrically opposed. The Holy Spirit interprets time’s purpose as
rendering the need for time unnecessary. He regards the function of time as
temporary, serving only His teaching function, which is temporary by
definition. His emphasis is therefore on the only aspect of time that can
extend to the infinite, for now is the closest approximation of eternity that
this world offers. It is in the reality of “now,” without past or future, that the
beginning of the appreciation of eternity lies. For only “now” is here, and
only “now” presents the opportunities for the holy encounters in which
salvation can be found.
 
The ego, on the other hand, regards the function of time as one of extending
itself in place of eternity, for like the Holy Spirit, the ego interprets the goal
of time as its own. The continuity of past and future, under its direction, is
the only purpose the ego perceives in time, and it closes over the present so
that no gap in its own continuity can occur. Its continuity, then, would keep
you in time, while the Holy Spirit would release you from it. It is his
interpretation of the means of salvation that you must learn to accept, if you
would share his goal of salvation for you.
 
You, too, will interpret the function of time as you interpret yours. If you
accept your function in the world of time as one of healing, you will
emphasize only the aspect of time in which healing can occur. Healing
cannot be accomplished in the past. It must be accomplished in the present
to release the future. This interpretation ties the future to the present, and
extends the present rather than the past. But if you interpret your function as
destruction, you will lose sight of the present and hold on to the past to
ensure a destructive future. And time will be as you interpret it, for of itself
it is nothing.