The Little Willingness

The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy. It is the answer. The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming. You prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you cannot do more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what he does not ask, or you will add the ego to him and confuse the two. He asks but little. It is he who adds the greatness and the might. He joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand. It is your realization that you need do so little that enables him to give so much.

Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without them you would not need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that you must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to be.

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The holy instant does not come from your little willingness alone. It is always the result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited power of God's Will.

You merely ask the question. The answer is given. Seek not to answer, but merely to receive the answer as it is given. In preparing for the holy instant, do not attempt to make yourself holy to be ready to receive it. That is but to confuse your role with God's. Atonement cannot come to those who think that they must first atone, but only to those who offer it nothing more than simple willingness to make way for it. Purification is of God alone, and therefore for you. Rather than seek to prepare yourself for him, try to think thus:

I who am host to God am worthy of him.

He who established His dwelling place in me

created it as he would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for him,

but only that I do not interfere with his plan to restore to me

my own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need add nothing to his plan.

But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it.

And that is all. Add more, and you will merely take away the little that is

asked.

ACiM Text Chapter Eighteen - The Passing of the Dream - Section 4 - The Little Willingness