A Course in Miracles

Chapter 26 - The Transition

Immediacy of Salvation

The one remaining problem that you have is that you see an interval between the time when you forgive and will receive the benefits of trust. This but reflects the little you would keep between yourselves that you might be a little separate, for time and space are one illusion which takes different forms.

If it (the little you would keep between yourselves that you might be a little separate) has been projected beyond your minds, you think of it as time.

The nearer it is brought to where it is, the more you think of it in terms of space.

There is a distance you would keep apart from one another, and this space you see as time because you still believe you are external to each other.

This makes trust impossible.

And you cannot believe that trust would settle every problem now. Thus do you think it safer to remain a little careful and a little watchful of interests perceived as separate.

From this perception you cannot conceive of gaining what forgiveness offers NOW.

The interval you think lies in between the giving and receiving of the gift seems to be one in which you sacrifice and suffer loss. You see eventual salvation, not immediate results.

Salvation Is Immediate

Salvation is immediate. Unless you so perceive it, you will be afraid of it, believing that the risk of loss is great between the time its purpose is made yours and its effects will come to you. In this form is the error still obscured that is the source of fear.

Salvation would wipe out the space you see between you still and let you instantly become as one, and it is here you fear the loss would lie.

Do not project this fear to time, for time is not the enemy that you perceive. Time is as neutral as the
body is, except in terms of what you see it for.

If you would keep a little space between you still, you want a little time in which forgiveness is withheld a little while. This makes the interval between the time in which forgiveness is withheld and given seem dangerous, with terror justified.

Yet space between you is apparent NOW, and cannot be perceived in future time.

No more can it be overlooked except within the present. Future loss is not your fear, but present joining is your dread. Who can feel desolation except now? A future cause as yet has no effects, and therefore must it be, that if you fear, there is a present cause. And it is this that needs correction, not a future state.

The plans you make for safety all are laid within the future, where you cannot plan. No purpose has been given it as yet, and what will happen has as yet no cause. Who can predict effects without a cause? And who could fear effects unless he thought they had been caused, and judged disastrous now?

Belief in sin arouses fear, and like its cause, is looking forward; looking back, but overlooking what is here and now.

Yet only here and now its cause must be, if its effects already have been judged as fearful, and in overlooking this, is it protected and kept separate from healing.

For a miracle is NOW.

It stands already here, in present grace, within the only interval of time which sin and fear have overlooked, but which is all there is to time.

The working out of all correction takes no time at all. Yet the acceptance of the working out can seem to take forever.

Chapter 26 - The Transition

For They Have Come

Think but how holy you must be from whom the Voice for God calls lovingly unto your brother, that you may awake in him the Voice that answers to your call! And think how holy he must be when in him sleeps your own salvation, with his freedom joined!

However much you wish he be condemned, God is in him, and never will you know He is in you as well, while you attack His chosen home and battle with His host.

Regard him gently. Look with loving eyes on him who carries Christ within him, that you may behold His glory, and rejoice that Heaven is not separate from you.

Is it too much to ask a little trust for him who carries Christ to you, that you may be forgiven all your sins, and left without a single one you cherish still?

The Face of Christ & Memory of God

Forget not that a shadow held between your brother and yourself obscures the face of Christ and memory of God, and would you trade Them (face of Christ and memory of God) for an ancient hate?

The ground whereon you stand is holy ground because of Them Who, standing there with you, having blessed it with Their innocence and peace. The blood of hatred fades to let the grass grow green again, and let the flowers be all white and sparkling in the summer sun.

What was a place of death has now become a living temple in a world of light, because of Them. It is Their Presence which has lifted holiness again to take its ancient place upon an ancient throne. Because of Them have miracles sprung up as grass and flowers on the barren ground which hate had scorched and rendered desolate.

What hate has wrought have They undone, and now you stand on ground so holy Heaven leans to join with it, and make it like itself.

The shadow of an ancient hate has gone, and all the blight and withering have passed forever from the land where They have come.

What is a hundred or a thousand years to Them, or tens of thousands?

When They come, time’s purpose is fulfilled.

What never was passes to nothingness when They have come. What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home.

The incomplete is made complete again, and Heaven’s joy has been increased because what is its own has been restored to it.

The bloodied earth is cleansed, and the insane have shed their garments of insanity, to join Them on the ground whereon you stand.

Heaven is grateful for this gift of what has been withheld so long, for They have come to gather in Their Own. What has been locked is opened; what was held apart from light is given up, that light may shine on it, and leave no space nor distance lingering between the light of Heaven and the world.

The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.

And They come quickly to the living temple, where a home for Them has been set up. There is no place in Heaven holier. And They have come to dwell within the temple offered them, to be Their resting-place as well as yours.

What hatred has released to love becomes the brightest light in Heaven’s radiance. And all the lights in Heaven brighter grow, in gratitude for what has been restored. Around you angels hover lovingly, to keep away all darkened thoughts of sin, and keep the light where it has entered in.

Your footprints lighten up the world, for where you walk forgiveness gladly goes with you. No one on earth but offers thanks to one who has restored his home, and sheltered him from bitter winter and the freezing cold.

And shall the Lord of Heaven and His Son give less in gratitude for so much more?

Now is the temple of the Living God rebuilt as host again to Him by Whom it was created. Where He dwells, His Son dwells with Him, never separate, and They give thanks that They are welcome made at last.

Where stood a cross stands now the risen Christ, and ancient scars are healed within His sight. An ancient miracle has come to bless and to replace an ancient enmity that came to kill. In gentle gratitude do God the Father and the Son return to what is Theirs, and will forever be.

Now is the Holy Spirit’s purpose done, for They have come! For They have come at last!

The Holy Spirits Purpose Now Is Yours

The change of purpose the Holy Spirit brought to your relationship has in it all effects that you will see.

They can be looked at NOW.

Why wait till they unfold in time, and fear they may not come, although already there?

You have been told that everything brings good that comes from God. And yet it seems as if this is not so.

Good in disaster’s form is difficult to credit in advance. Nor is there really sense in this idea.

Why should the good appear in evil’s form, and is it not deception if it does?

Its cause is here, if it appears at all.

Why are not its effects apparent, then?

Why in the future?

And you seek to be content with sighing, and with “reasoning” you do not understand it now, but will some day and then its meaning will be clear.

This is not reason, for it is unjust, and clearly hints at punishment until the time of liberation is at hand.

Given a change of purpose for the good, there is no reason for an interval in which disaster strikes, to be perceived as “good” some day, but now in form of pain.

This is a sacrifice of now, which could not be the cost the Holy Spirit asks for what he gave without a cost at all.

Yet this illusion has a cause which, though untrue, must be already in your mind, and this illusion is but one effect which it engenders, and one form in which its outcome is perceived.

This interval in time, when retribution is perceived to be the form in which the “good” appears is but one aspect of the little space that lies between you, unforgiven still.

Be not content with future happiness.

It has no meaning, and is not your just reward, for you have cause for freedom NOW.

What profits freedom in a prisoner’s form?

Why should deliverance be disguised as death?

Delay is senseless, and the “reasoning” which would maintain effects of present cause must be delayed until a future time is merely a denial of the fact that consequence and cause must come as one.

Look not to time, but to the little space between you still, to be delivered from.

And do not let it be disguised as time, and so preserved because its form is changed, and what it is cannot be recognized.

The Holy Spirit’s purpose NOW is yours.

Should not His happiness be yours as well?