VI. Time and Eternity

T-5.VI.1. God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is bereft while you wait. ² All the Sons of God are waiting for your return, just as you are waiting for theirs. ³ Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. ⁴ You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you are in time. ⁵ Yet your election is both free and alterable. ⁶ You do not belong in time. ⁷ Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever.

T-5.VI.2. Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. ² They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will be like the past. ³ This is the ego's continuity. ⁴ It gives the ego a false sense of security by believing that you cannot escape from it. ⁵ But you can and must. ⁶ God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. ⁷ When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. ⁸ My role is only to unchain your will and set it free. ⁹ Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose it at every possible moment and in every possible way. ¹⁰ And as its maker, you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it.

T-5.VI.3. Remember the Kingdom always, and remember that you who are part of the Kingdom cannot be lost. ² The Mind that was in me is in you, for God creates with perfect fairness. ³ Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His fairness, and let me teach you how to share it with your brothers. ⁴ How else can the chance to claim it for yourself be given you? ⁵ The two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously; or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. ⁶ Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until the first one was made.

T-5.VI.4. The ego speaks in judgment, and the Holy Spirit reverses its decision, much as a higher court has the power to reverse a lower court's decisions in this world. ² The ego's decisions are always wrong, because they are based on the error they were made to uphold. ³ Nothing the ego perceives is interpreted correctly. ⁴ Not only does the ego cite Scripture for its purpose, but it even interprets Scripture as a witness for itself. ⁵ The Bible is a fearful thing in the ego's judgment. ⁶ Perceiving it as frightening, it interprets it fearfully. ⁷ Being afraid, you do not appeal to the Higher Court because you believe its judgment would also be against you.

T-5.VI.5. There are many examples of how the ego's interpretations are misleading, but a few will suffice to show how the Holy Spirit can reinterpret them in His Own light.

T-5.VI.6. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap" He interprets to mean what you consider worth cultivating you will cultivate in yourself. ² Your judgment of what is worthy makes it worthy for you.

T-5.VI.7. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" is easily reinterpreted if you remember that ideas increase only by being shared. ² The statement emphasizes that vengeance cannot be shared. ³ Give it therefore to the Holy Spirit, Who will undo it in you because it does not belong in your mind, which is part of God.

T-5.VI.8. "I will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation," as interpreted by the ego, is particularly vicious. ² It becomes merely an attempt to guarantee the ego's own survival. ³ To the Holy Spirit, the statement means that in later generations He can still reinterpret what former generations had misunderstood, and thus release the thoughts from the ability to produce fear.

T-5.VI.9. "The wicked shall perish" becomes a statement of Atonement, if the word "perish" is understood as "be undone." ² Every loveless thought must be undone, a word the ego cannot even understand. ³ To the ego, to be undone means to be destroyed. ⁴ The ego will not be destroyed because it is part of your thought, but because it is uncreative and therefore unsharing, it will be reinterpreted to release you from fear. ⁵ The part of your mind that you have given to the ego will merely return to the Kingdom, where your whole mind belongs. ⁶ You can delay the completion of the Kingdom, but you cannot introduce the concept of fear into it.

T-5.VI.10. You need not fear the Higher Court will condemn you. ² It will merely dismiss the case against you. ³ There can be no case against a child of God, and every witness to guilt in God's creations is bearing false witness to God Himself. ⁴ Appeal everything you believe gladly to God's Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him and therefore speaks truly. ⁵ It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it up. ⁶ The case may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof. ⁷ The Holy Spirit will not hear it, because He can only witness truly. ⁸ His verdict will always be "thine is the Kingdom," because He was given to you to remind you of what you are.

T-5.VI.11. When I said "I am come as a light into the world," I meant that I came to share the light with you. ² Remember my reference to the ego's dark glass, and remember also that I said, "Do not look there." ³ It is still true that where you look to find yourself is up to you. ⁴ Your patience with your brother is your patience with yourself. ⁵ Is not a child of God worth patience? ⁶ I have shown you infinite patience because my will is that of our Father, from Whom I learned of infinite patience. ⁷ His Voice was in me as It is in you, speaking for patience towards the Sonship in the Name of its Creator.

T-5.VI.12. Now you must learn that only infinite patience produces immediate effects. ² This is the way in which time is exchanged for eternity. ³ Infinite patience calls upon infinite love, and by producing results now it renders time unnecessary. ⁴ We have repeatedly said that time is a learning device to be abolished when it is no longer useful. ⁵ The Holy Spirit, Who speaks for God in time, also knows that time is meaningless. ⁶ He reminds you of this in every passing moment of time, because it is His special function to return you to eternity and remain to bless your creations there. ⁷ He is the only blessing you can truly give, because He is truly blessed. ⁸ Because He has been given you freely by God, you must give Him as you received Him.