It is impossible to let the past go without relinquishing the special
relationship. For the special relationship is an attempt to RE-ENACT the
past and CHANGE it. Imagined slights, remembered pain, past
disappointments, perceived injustices and deprivations all enter into
the special relationship, which becomes a way in which you seek to
restore your wounded self-esteem. What basis would you have for choosing
a special partner WITHOUT the past? Every such choice is made because of
something “evil” in the past, to which you cling, and for which must
someone else atone.

The special relationship TAKES VENGEANCE on the past. By seeking to
remove suffering in the past, it OVERLOOKS the present in its
preoccupation with the past and its total commitment to it. NO special
relationship is experienced in the present. Shades of the past envelop
it, and make it what it is. It HAS no meaning in the present, and if it
means nothing NOW, it cannot have any real meaning at all. How can you
change the past EXCEPT in fantasy? And who can give you what you think
the past deprived you of? The past is nothing. Do not seek to lay the
blame for deprivation on it, for the past is gone. You cannot really NOT
let go what has ALREADY gone. It must be, therefore, that you are
maintaining the illusion that it has NOT gone because you think it
serves some purpose that you want FULFILLED. And it must also be that
this purpose could NOT be fulfilled in the present, but ONLY in the
past.

Do not underestimate the intensity of the ego’s drive for vengeance on
the past. It is completely savage and completely insane. For the ego
remembers everything that you have done which offended it, and seeks
retribution of YOU. The fantasies it brings to the special relationships
it chooses in which to act out its hate are fantasies of YOUR
destruction. For the ego holds the past AGAINST you, and in your ESCAPE
from the past, it sees itself deprived of the vengeance it believes that
you so justly merit. Yet without your alliance in your own destruction,
the ego could not hold you to the past.

In the special relationship, you are ALLOWING your destruction to
be. That this is insane is obvious. But what is less obvious to you is
that the PRESENT is useless to you while you pursue the ego’s goal as
its ally. The past is gone; seek not to preserve it in the special
relationship which binds you to it, and would teach you that salvation
is past, and that you must return TO the past to find salvation. There
is no fantasy which does not contain the dream of retribution for the
past. Would you act out the dream, or let it go?

In the special relationship, it does not SEEM to be an acting out
of vengeance which you seek. And even when the hatred and the savagery
break briefly through into awareness, the illusion of love is not
profoundly shaken. Yet the one thing which the ego never allows to reach
awareness is that the special relationship is the acting out of
vengeance on YOURSELF. But what else COULD it be? In seeking the special
relationship, you look not for glory in YOURSELF. You have denied that
it is THERE, and the relationship becomes your SUBSTITUTE for it. And
vengeance becomes your substitute for Atonement, and the ESCAPE from
vengeance becomes your LOSS.

Against the ego’s insane notion of salvation the Holy Spirit gently lays
the holy instant. We said before that the Holy Spirit must teach through
comparisons, and uses opposites to point to truth. The holy instant is
the OPPOSITE of the ego’s fixed belief in salvation through vengeance
for the past. In the holy instant, it is accepted that the past is gone,
and with its passing the drive for vengeance has been uprooted, and has
disappeared. The stillness and the peace of NOW enfolds you in perfect
gentleness. Everything is gone except the truth.

For a time, you may attempt to bring illusions into the holy instant to
hinder your full awareness of the COMPLETE difference, in all respects,
between your experience of truth and illusion. Yet you will not attempt
this long. In the holy instant, the power of the Holy Spirit will
prevail because you JOINED Him. The illusions you bring with you will
weaken the experience of Him for a while, and will prevent you from
keeping the experience in your mind. Yet the holy instant IS eternal, and
your illusions of time will not prevent the timeless from being what it
is, nor you from experiencing it as it is.

What God has given you is truly given, and will be truly RECEIVED. For
God’s gifts HAVE no reality apart from your receiving them. YOUR
receiving completes His GIVING. You will receive BECAUSE it is His Will
to give. He gave the holy instant to be given you, and it is impossible
that you receive it not BECAUSE He gave it. When He willed that His Son
be free, His Son WAS free. In the holy instant is His reminder that His
Son will always be EXACTLY as he was created. And everything the Holy
Spirit teaches you is to remind you that you HAVE received what God has
given you.

There is nothing you can hold against reality. All that must be forgiven
are the illusions you have held against your brothers. Their
reality HAS no past, and only illusions can BE forgiven. God holds
nothing against anyone, for He is incapable of illusions of ANY kind.
Release your brothers from the slavery of their illusions by forgiving
them for the illusions which YOU perceive in them. Thus will you learn
that YOU have been forgiven, for it is YOU who offered them illusions.
In the holy instant this is done for you IN TIME, to bring to you the
true condition of Heaven.

Remember that you always choose between truth and illusion; between the
REAL Atonement which would heal and the ego’s “atonement” which would
destroy. The power of God and all His Love, without limit, will support
you as you seek only your place in the plan of Atonement arising from
His Love. Be an ally of God and not the ego in seeking how Atonement can
come to you. His help suffices, for His Messenger understands how to
restore the Kingdom to you, and to place ALL your investment in
salvation in your relationship with Him.

Seek and FIND His message in the holy instant, where all illusions are
forgiven. From there the miracle extends to bless everyone and to
resolve all problems, be they perceived as great or small, possible or
impossible. There is nothing that will not give place to Him and to His
majesty. To join in close relationship with Him is to accept
relationships as REAL, and through their reality to give over all
illusions for the reality of your relationship with God. Praise be to
your relationship with Him, and to no other. The truth lies here, and
nowhere else. You choose this or NOTHING.

“Forgive us our illusions, Father, and help us to accept our true
relationship with You, in which there are no illusions, and where none
can ever enter. Our holiness is Yours. What can there be in us that
NEEDS forgiveness when Yours is perfect? The sleep of forgetfulness
is only the unwillingness to remember Your forgiveness and Your Love.
Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of
God is not Your Will. And let us receive only what* YOU *have given,
and accept but this into the minds which You created, and which You
love. Amen.”