 Oftentimes, when we bring up a word like meditation, again, it's a word and there's just different meanings and connotations. And people may think of sitting, or sitting in a particular posture, or breathing a certain way, or a certain technique, maybe transcendental meditation, or there's so many different kinds. And when the topic of the Holy Instant comes up in the Course, it's described in very different terms than meditation terms. In fact, Jesus says in the Course, you cannot prepare for the Holy Instant without placing it in the future. It's an amazing sense, just such a deep, profound sense. You cannot prepare for the Holy Instant without placing it in the future. So when you open up to the topic of meditation, you can see there's some time ideas that can try to come in, even though the point is to still the mind, to come to the present moment, to feel the presence of God's love. And all meditations have that as the goal, but there's some time ideas and form ideas that get mixed in. They're all thrown in the mix. So what is helpful is that Jesus says that the only thing you can really do with the Holy Instant is desire it. That you will bring it into your awareness by your desire. That's helpful too. Okay, now you're telling me I can't prepare for it without placing it in the future, so I'll miss it if I try to prepare for it. And you're telling me that I need to desire it in order to experience it, so that's helpful too. So he's given you a way to go into it and experience it in a way that you're going to avoid it. So that's where it's like very much empty your mind because as long as you have your meditation kind of in the context of a preparation, as long as your meditation is on the timeline, which in most cases, in most books, in most traditions, it's definitely described on the timeline. It's like when people say, I'm going off to my bedroom to meditate. A good answer would be, hmm, do your meditations have starts and stops? That's the time part of it. You see, it's assumed to have a beginning. I'm going off to my, like it's an activity. I'm going into my room to meditate. Well, oh, it's an activity, huh? That's what it is. Meditation in its reality is not an activity. It's not like eating or sleeping or taking a walk. I'm going to go meditate. You know, you're really objectifying it. You're really putting it on the timeline when you're describing it in those kind of time terms. And what you really want to do to go into the Holy Instant is start to realize that, hmm, I need to really focus on the desire and I need to really release all time component aspects of preparation. So some people would say, well, that's kind of a contradiction or isn't that a paradox to why would you have a course of miracles with 365 lessons and all these instructions and everything like this if the whole point is to desire the Holy Instant. It's almost like that's all wrapped around. That's like a package that it's all wrapped in, but it's not really it. So I think it's good that you bring that up as we are opening to a sign of retreat because you can give yourself more over to the desire for it and emptying your mind of everything else but the desire for it. The more you would say the more you desire, the more you bring it closer into your awareness. But as long as we think of it in terms of actions and activities of the body and formulas and techniques and so on and so forth, you can see those are all, actually when you get right down to it, those are defenses. Whenever someone tells, here I'm going to give you the formula to eternity. You can say, not this. I don't want that. I don't want the formula to eternity. There is no formula to eternity. I want to actually let go of that. I love quotes from the Course that just zoom right into the core to the desire. There is one quote from the Course that I just love and it's just, you can just take it as your torch into the silent meditation. The peace of God is my one goal, the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life while I abide where I am not at home. Wow, what a sentence. Boom, my goal, function, purpose, life. It's all while I believe I'm a body where goals are meaningful. If I believe I'm not at home in heaven, when I believe I'm on earth while I abide where I'm not at home, then you see how the peace of God, the very thing you brought up to peace, is peace the goal. Oh, yes, it's the goal and the purpose and the function and my life and everything. He throws it all in one sentence and says, yeah, that's right. Go for it. Desire it. Desire it above all else. Don't let your desire get scattered out, splintered out into the wind of the world. Zoom in to it.