time

 

time

The linear progression of separate moments that is the context for change, attack, birth, and death.

  1. There is no time in reality, in eternity, and thus time is an illusion.
  2. Time resulted from our apparent shattering of the one moment of eternity in the separation. Time’s separate moments are really only a single moment, a fragment of eternity seen as non-eternal and as multiple. All of time, and the long journey it contains, took only a tiny instant in eternity (see T-26.V.3) before it was answered by God and was ended (see Holy Spirit). We are now at the end of time looking back on it, mentally reviewing it like we would a past conversation or movie (see M-2.2-4). We cannot change the basic progression of our movie (since it already happened), but we can “fast forward” through parts of it by accepting miracles (see T-1.II.6).
  3. The ego tries to make time last forever by seeking to endlessly repeat the past. It tells us to take revenge for past injustices. Yet this is really a trick to get us to repeat past sins and so reinforce present guilt and fear of future punishment.
  4. The Holy Spirit places all His focus on now, on undoing the past by releasing others from it (see forgiveness) and entering the present moment (see holy instant), the only moment that is real and the only moment in which we can change our minds. In the present moment we can experience eternity, since the present is a shard of eternity (see T-17.IV.11, 15). From this present moment a new future can extend, which does not repeat the past and which will lead us back to eternity. This is the only purpose of time.