Lesson 308, This instant is the only time there is.

You may find yourself increasingly dissatisfied with you life, and while looking for satisfaction, you may find comfort in the idea that you are on a journey, and in time you will find what you’re looking for.

What you have forgotten is that there is only now. Whoops! That now moment is gone, and there’s only now. Right now is this interval from what appears to be past to what appears to be the future. Now is a shift in your mind from the state of conflict to the state of the peace of God. In this state of mind you look through the eyes of Christ and experience only the reflection of the peace of God, now. The now is experienced as the absence of a chattering voice narrating you life of conflict. There is only the stillness of now.

These thoughts were inspired by today’s lesson.

http://acim.home.att.net/workbook308.html

“Conceive” comes from the Latin, concipere, meaning “to take in.” Through the eyes of the ego, we assume that what is outside is real, and we “take it in” and give it meaning. That is our conception of time. We look at the hands moving on a clock and make it real, while all the time this defeats our aim of experiencing the Christ being born in us, an expression for experiencing peace through the eyes of Christ, requiring simply a shift of mind from conflict to peace.
The purpose of the illusion of time is to use it to spring into Heaven. You can choose, you can elect now, to see through the eyes of the ego, or the eyes of Christ and experience now. This action of the mind is called forgiveness. Since there are only two emotions, love and fear, you can forgive fear and experience only love; fear is no more real than time. There is no world other than how I conceive it. When I forgive my conceptions, I experience salvation.

Here is Lesson 308 in blank verse. Hidden in the prose version of this lesson is a special gift from Jesus, the lesson in the sheer poetry of blank verse, meaning ten syllables per line in a particular pattern called iambic, slack STRESS. (For a fuller explanation of blank verse, please see the preceding blog on Lesson 304)

Enjoy.

Lesson 308

This instant is the only time there is.

I have conceived of time in such a way
that I defeat my aim. If I elect
to reach past time to timelessness, I must
change my perception of what time is for.
Time's purpose cannot be to keep the past
and future one. The only interval
in which I can be saved from time is now.
For in this instant has forgiveness come
to set me free. The birth of Christ is now,
without a past or future. He has come
to give His present blessing to the world,
restoring it to timelessness and love.
And love is ever-present, here and now.

Thanks for this instant, Father. It is now
I am redeemed. This instant is the time
You have appointed for Your Son's release,
and for salvation of the world in him.