The Holy Instant - 2
by Allen Watson
II. The Experience of the Holy Instant
A. Aspects and Attributes of the Experience
These notes are unpolished speaking notes from a workshop given in June, 1994. Please excuse any mistakes or unexplained references to previous sessions of the workshop. In this session we're going to be discussing different aspects and attributes of the experience of the holy instant. We've talked about what the holy instant is. It is a moment in which we accept, now, in time, all or part of what we already are and have in eternity. It is a moment in which the veils drop away, or are laid aside, and we see what they have been hiding all along. It is a foretaste of Heaven in the world of time.
Now we are going to take a closer look at some of the things we may experience when the holy instant happens to us. Let me make it clear up front that not all of these things happen in every holy instant. In fact, for some of us, certain aspects of the holy instant may be predominant in our experience, while certain other aspects seem never to come up. One person may experience a deep connectedness with all living things; another person may be flooded with feelings of love; someone else may have something like an out-of-body experience. They are all just different ways of looking at the same thing, and the formless will always take form in whatever way is most meaningful to us.
1. A Suspension of Time
Robert has already talked at some length about the relationship of the holy instant to time. The holy instant is an experience of now, of being wholly in the present, without past or future.We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now. We enter into the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within (W-181.5:6, 7).
There is no fear in the present when each instant stands clear and separated from the past, without its shadow reaching into the future (T-15.I.8:3).
One aspect of experiencing a holy instant is that "each instant stands clear and separated from the past" and from the shadow of the past extending into the future. There is just now.
Workbook Lesson 194, "I place the future in the hands of God," is mostly about this aspect of the holy instant: the suspension of time, the experience of being in the present moment.
In no one instant is depression felt, or pain experienced or loss perceived. In no one instant sorrow can be set upon a throne, and worshipped faithfully. In no one instant can one even die. And so each instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given Him already, is a time of your release from sadness, pain and even death itself (W-194.3:1-4).
Depression, pain, loss, sorrow and death are all aspects of time. In the holy instant you escape them all. Life is meant to become a string of such holy instants, one following the other, bringing us the experience of release.
You are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God's Hands. And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless (W-194.4:3-6).
In the holy instant, the sin of the past is gone and the guilt that comes from it has no basis; because of that, fear of the future vanishes as well. In that moment, perhaps just for a brief flash of time at first, but longer and longer as you experience it more and more, you break free of the ego's cycle of sin, guilt and fear. You just let the future go and place it in God's Hands, and rest at peace.
Release the future. For the past is gone, and what is present, freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss, becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its pitiless, inevitable course. Then is each instant which was slave to time transformed into a holy instant, when the light that was kept hidden in God's Son is freed to bless the world. Now is he free, and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him, to share his holiness (W-194.5:1-4).
...he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace (W-194.7:6).
That is the holy instant. Present peace, free of fear of future pain, free of guilt. When the present instant becomes the holy instant, your light is free to shine upon the world and bless it. You are free, and you spontaneously share the freedom with the world.
The holy instant brings an experience of timelessness, or in other words, an experience of being outside of time. As it is stated in Lesson 157, "Into His Presence would I enter now," we "have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above its laws, and walk into eternity for a while" (W-157.3:2). That is what happens in the holy instant.
2. Freedom From the Body
Freedom from the body is an aspect of the holy instant that is mentioned frequently.
In the holy instant...the Great Rays replace the body in awareness (T-15.IX.3:1).
When the body ceases to attract you, and when you place no value on it as a means of getting anything, then there will be no interference in communication and your thoughts will be as free as God's As you let the Holy Spirit teach you how to use the body only for purposes of communication, and renounce its use for separation and attack which the ego sees in it, you will learn you have no need of a body at all. In the holy instant there are no bodies, and you experience only the attraction of God (T-15.IX.7:1-3).
When A Course in Miracles says "there are no bodies" in the holy instant it does not mean that your body literally vanishes. Your awareness of it may vanish. Your concern with it will vanish. Your absorption in the body as a means of getting what you want will vanish. Your involvement in the way the ego uses the body for separation and attack will vanish, and you will learn from the Holy Spirit how to use the body only for communication. But the body does not literally, physically, disappear.
The holy instant breaks your identification with the body. In the holy instant you understand, or begin to understand, what "I am not a body" really means.
Section VI of Chapter 18, "Beyond the Body," expresses the shift in awareness about the body very clearly. It tells us that "Minds are joined; bodies are not" (3:1). We have made the mistake of confusing body and mind, of thinking that the mind is contained in the body and limited by the body; it isn't. We see bodies separate, fragmented and alone and think that our minds are separate, fragmented and alone. They are not; they are joined.
The body was not made by love. [It was made by the ego's rage and attack.] Yet love does not condemn it and can use it lovingly, respecting what the Son of God has made and using it to save him from illusions (4:7, 8).
The body is what seems to separate us from other minds, it is what limits us and keeps us apart.
This thing you made to serve your guilt stands between you and other minds. The minds are joined, but you do not identify with them. You see yourself locked in a separate prison, removed and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached (7:3-5).
The holy instant teaches us the opposite. It teaches us that the separation is an illusion. In the holy instant you experience mind joined as one; you let go of the limits the body seems to impose. It isn't that you experience your mind reaching out to other minds, as if the minds were separate and trying to be joined. You experience that they are already joined, already one.
The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication that is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is internal. Mind reaches to itself. It is not made up of different parts, which reach each other. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it. It encompasses everything. It encompasses you entirely; you within it and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever (8:3-11).
That universal communication of mind is what you experience sometimes in the holy instant. The apparent limitations of the body just fall away. If this seems difficult to understand or to imagine, the Course hastens to show us that we have all had some experiences that were at least like this, if not the actual holy instant itself.
Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported beyond himself (11:1).
This is going to be expanded on in the paragraphs that follow, but stop here and take note that the Course is talking about something which is says "everyone" has experienced. It isn't talking about the holy instant here, but about something that is like the holy instant that everybody has experienced in one form or another.
[Read all of paragraph 11 AND 12, making comments along the way.]
11:4 - The feeling of being transported beyond yourself is really "a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of yourself and something else." He says later, in 12:3, that this "something" could be "a sight, a sound, a thought, a memory, and even a general idea without specific reference." This is talking, I think, about the sort of thing that might happen in listening to some music, or the "opening up inside" that can happen as you gaze up at the stars or look out across the ocean. There is, suddenly, a sense of being much larger than your body. More properly, you become "unaware" of the body as a limit.
12:2 - You join with something that may be past or future. You may read a poem by Robert Browning, for instance, and feel a connection to him; or the words of a saint in the Bible. This experience, whatever it is, isn't limited by time or space; the body does not limit you.
Once again, remember this is talking about something everybody has experienced to some degree. These kinds of experiences may not be actual holy instants, and yet again they might be. What these experiences and the holy instant have in common is that sense of joining with something beyond your body.
Read paragraph 13.
Notice the four characteristics that are attributed here to the holy instant:
- The lifting of the barriers of time and space
- The sudden experience of peace and joy
- Above all, the lack of awareness of the body
- The lack of questioning whether or not all this is possible.
Read paragraph 14.
We come to the holy instant, this "place of refuge," "Not through destruction, not through a breaking out, but merely by a quiet melting in." That is very descriptive of the "meditation technique" given in the Workbook--a kind of sinking down into oneself. There is no striving and struggle here, but a relaxing, a falling back into God's arms, a kind of letting go.
If joining in your mind with anything beyond the body such as a sight or a sound can produce this lack of awareness of the body, along with all the rest, what must it be like to join with the vastness of the Sonship or the infinity of God? It is the same experience magnified thousands of times over.
3. A Sense of Love
In the holy instant you recognize the idea of love in you, and unite this idea with the Mind that thought it, and could not relinquish it (T-15.VI.5:3).
Also read 5:1-2, 4-7.
When the barriers to love are removed, love is spontaneously manifest. We are asked to "Teach only love, for that is what you are" (T-6.I.13:2). What we are is love, and that is what you see and remember in the holy instant. You do more than simply remember this idea; you experience yourself as love. You remember that "God is but love, and therefore so am I" (Workbook, Review V).
What occurred within the instant that love entered in without attack will stay with you forever (T-27.V.11:4).
That "instant of love without attack" is the holy instant. (See also 27.V.2:11).
With love in you, you have no need except to extend it. In the holy instant there is no conflict of needs, for there is only one [one need, to extend love]. For the holy instant reaches to eternity, and to the Mind of God. And it is only there love has meaning, and only there it can be understood (T-15.V.11:3-6).
4. Oneness
The holy instant is characterized by a sense of oneness. Mystics of all religions down through the ages have spoken of this. Frank Buchman (?) called it "cosmic consciousness" in a book by that title he wrote at the start of this century.
In the holy instant the Sonship gains as one, and united in your blessing it becomes one to you (T-15.V.10:2).
Yet in the holy instant you unite directly with God, and all your brothers join in Christ (T-15.V.10:8).
There is no exclusion in the holy instant because the past is gone, and with it goes the whole basis for exclusion (T-15.VI.8:3).
There is a falling away of barriers, an absence of reasons to exclude anyone or anything from your love. But more than simply feeling love for everyone and everything, in the holy instant you realize that everyone and everything is part of you. You realize that "Your relationships are with the universe" (T-15.VIII.4:4). In this universe, "all its parts are joined through Christ, where they become like to their Father. Christ knows of no separation from His Father" (T-15.VIII.4:6, 7). The Course tells us, "Yet your minds are already continuous, and their union need only be accepted and the loneliness in Heaven is gone" (T-15.IX.4:7).
This kind of experience is not something you experience every time you turn your mind to God. Yet it could be. The oneness is inherent in the holy instant; it is our mind that is not ready, and not willing, to accept it. If it were forced upon us, it would probably terrify us. Sometimes, I think, God grants us a quick, unexpected preview--a foretaste, a teaser. I had one such experience. I don't know how it happened, and it has not happened since. But the memory of it lives in me.
Helen had an experience of oneness on the subway in New York. (Relate story.)
The last paragraphs of "The Forgotten Song" in Chapter 21 describe the vision she had at that time. (Read 21.I.8-10).
5. A Sense of Joy
One of the characteristics we saw listed in "Beyond the Body" was "a sudden experience of peace and joy." I don't have other quotes that connect joy with the holy instant, although there may be some. But in the Manual, Chapter 16, on "How should the teacher of God spent his day?" Jesus says,
There is one thought in particular that should be remembered throughout the day. It is a thought of pure joy; a thought of peace, a thought of limitless release (M-16.6:1, 2).
Remembering joy is definitely part of the holy instant and its experience. "The only possible whole state is the wholly joyous" (T-5.In.2:4).
Sometimes when I am with God in a holy instant, joy simply washes over me. It may last only for a split second. I can't seem to make it happen; it just happens. It's a gift. But I always identify that with the holy instant. And I often remember those instants of joy even in moments when I am not actually feeling that joy; to me, they are reminders of what is the truth, and reminders that any state less that wholly joyous is not whole, and therefore not real.
6. Perfect Communication
Read 15.VII, paragraph 12 to 14.
By removing guilt, which disrupts communication, perfect communication is re-established in the holy instant. There is no concealment and no private thoughts. Everyone is invited and made welcome.
In the holy instant God is remembered, and the language of communication with all your brothers is remembered with Him (T-15.VI.8:1).
God and the power of God will take their rightful place in you, and you will experience the full communication of ideas with ideas (T-15.VI.8:6).
7. The Vision of Christ
In the holy instant you see Christ in all your brothers; or perhaps it would be better to say you see all your brothers in Christ. "The Great Rays replace the body in awareness" (T-15.IX.3:1), that is, you see the light of God shining in everyone, and not the body, which is the symbol of the ego. This "shift to vision...is accomplished in the holy instant" (T-15.IX.1:2).
There is a passage in the Workbook that seems to imply that the holy instant takes you beyond even true perception and gives you a foretaste of the knowledge of Heaven. The knowledge is not something you can bring back with you because it would be impossible to exist in this world with knowledge. But we can bring back a vision, something we can share with our brothers and sisters, not in words, but in experience. It is something we can demonstrate to them by the changes in our attitude. Here is the relevant Workbook passage, from Lesson 157, "Into His Presence would I enter now." This lesson, although it does not use the term "holy instant," is one of the most powerful "holy instant" lessons in the Workbook.
This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience; a different kind of feeling and awareness (1:4).
This is another crucial turning point in the curriculum. We add a new dimension now; a fresh experience that sheds a light on all that we have learned already, and prepares us for what we have yet to learn (2:1-2).
This lesson basically introduces the practice of holy instants into the Workbook curriculum. There have been previous lessons that were directed at having an experience with God or a holy instant, but this lesson makes it a permanent part of the curriculum. It emphasizes the experience that we will have, and tells us that this experience will shed a whole new light on all the lessons that we have already learned, and will prepare us for what is to come. In the second half of the Workbook, the part that is supposed to instill the new thought system into our lives, every lesson, every day is meant to be the practice of having holy instants. This lesson prepares us for that.
It brings us to the door where learning ceases...
That has to be a door between true perception and knowledge, between earth and Heaven.
...and we catch a glimpse of what lies past the highest reaches it [that is, learning] can possibly attain.
Again, what lies past the highest reaches learning can attain? Heaven. It can't be anything else.
It leaves us here [at the door to Heaven] only an instant, and we go beyond it, sure of our direction and our only goal. (2:3-4)
It seems to be saying that the holy instant not only brings us to the door to Heaven, but actually takes us beyond it, or at least lets us get a glimpse of what lies past the door. What it is talking about is clearly what the Course calls, elsewhere, revelation. Listen.
Today it will be given you to feel a touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning. (3:1)
This is something beyond learning, higher than learning can go. It is a "touch of Heaven." In the holy instant we experience that touch of Heaven, and then we "return to paths of learning."
Yet you have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above its laws, and walk into eternity a while. (3:2)
"Eternity" is not something in this world; it belongs to the realm of Heaven. The holy instant can sometimes bring you to that point where you have an experience which is, quite literally, out of this world. You "walk into eternity a while." This is revelation; this is direct experience of knowlege and of Heaven.
This you will learn to do increasingly, as every lesson, faithfully rehearsed, brings you more swiftly to this holy place and leaves you, for a moment, to your Self. (3:3)
The goal of faithfully rehearsing the Workbook lessons is so that they will bring us, more and more swiftly, to "this holy place," this experience of the holy instant, in which we are left, "for a moment, to you Self" with a capital "S". Holy instants are intended to be such "high" experiences, more and more, as you go on. They are meant to transform your mind.
For your experience today will so transform your mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God (4:3).
Your mind becomes "the touchstone," that is, the experience of this instant will set a standard or example in your mind against which you can measure your thoughts; it becomes the measure of truth. Because of this experience you will know how to tell illusions apart from truth.
The lesson goes on to say that we will return to share our vision with the world. We cannot share the experience directly, but we can share the vision that it leaves in our minds. We share that vision so that everyone else "may come the sooner to the same experience in which the world is quietly forgot, and Heaven is remembered for a while" (4:3). Our continuing and increasing experiences of holy instants will bring the world a little closer to the end of time, each time we experience the holy instant, until eventually "you will not return in the same form in which you now appear," that is, in the body.
In the final paragraph there is once again a clear intimation that the holy instant can take us beyond all learning, beyond perception and even beyond the vision of Christ, into a remembrance of knowledge that can never be translated into the perceptual realm. Listen:
Read W-157.9.
8. Understanding
The holy instant brings you perfect understanding. This may be implied in the Workbook lesson we just read. I only have a few scattered references about this aspect, but it is one I know to be part of the holy instant. In the holy instant you simply understand and know things you didn't know before. Your questions disappear; your doubts disappear. When you consider the truth there is a kind of "Of course!" element about it all; the truth seems obvious. How could it be otherwise?
We will make every effort today to reach this truth about you, and to realize fully, if only for a moment, that it is the truth (W-pI.67.1:6).
In the holy instant there is a kind of breakthrough into knowledge. It may last "only for a moment" but it is there. The section on "Beyond the Body" spoke of it when it referred to "The lack of questioning whether or not all this is possible".
9. Removing the Blocks to the Awareness of Love
If you look at each of these different aspects of the holy instant, you can see that every one of them could be expressed as the absence of something.
- Timelessness: the absence of fear of the future
- Transcending the body: absence of bodily limitations
- Love: the absence of judgment and attack
- Oneness: the absence of separation
- Joy: the absence of pain
- Perfect communication: the absence of defenses and barriers
- Vision of Christ: the absence of projected perceptions of guilt
- Understanding: the absence of questions
Every aspect of the holy instant can be understood as the absence of something the ego has made. The holy instant does not bring something into being that was not there before. It is not a creation but a recognition of what has always been there. Reality simply exists. The truth about us simply exists, eternally. But we have superimposed all kinds of things on top of the truth and we have covered it over. The holy instant is what we experience when we remove those coverings, or some of them. It is the absence of something that the ego has made.
We experience the holy instant when we are willing, to some small degree, to drop the ego's defenses, to let down the barriers, to stop clinging to our doubts, to let go of fear, to let go of the body, or to let go of our judgments and of what we think we know. The holy instant is, very simply, remembering God; remembering the truth.
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