And now the reason why you are afraid of this course should be apparent.
それはこれが愛の教えそのものだということ、
For this is a course on love, because it is about you.
この世におけるあなたの役目は（真の）癒しであり、
You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating.
自我の教えによれば、
The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and you have no function at all in Heaven.
かくして自我はあなたをここで破滅させ埋葬しようとするうえ、
It would thus destroy you here and bury you here, leaving you no inheritance except the dust out of which it thinks you were made.
その自我は自らの論法にしたがって、
As long as it is reasonably satisfied with you, as its reasoning goes, it offers you oblivion.
それが公然と残忍になったときには、
When it becomes overtly savage, it offers you hell.
ところがそうした忘却も地獄も、
Yet neither oblivion nor hell is as unacceptable to you as Heaven.
あなたの定義によると天国は確かに地獄と忘却であり、
Your definition of Heaven is hell and oblivion, and the real Heaven is the greatest threat you think you could experience.
それというのも地獄と忘却は自ら作り上げた観念であり、
For hell and oblivion are ideas that you made up, and you are bent on demonstrating their reality to establish yours.
そんなものの実在性を疑われたら、
If their reality is questioned, you believe that yours is.
なぜなら、あなたは攻撃することが自分の本当のすがたであり、
For you believe that attack is your reality, and that your destruction is the final proof that you were right.
こんな事情だから、
Under the circumstances, would it not be more desirable to have been wrong, even apart from the fact that you were wrong?
死ぬということが、
While it could perhaps be argued that death suggests there was life, no one would claim that it proves there is life.
過証明する必要があるとすれば、
Even the past life that death might indicate, could only have been futile if it must come to this, and needs this to prove that it was at all.
あなたは天国のことを疑問に思うくせに、
You question Heaven, but you do not question this.
けれども、
Yet, you could heal and be healed if you did question it.
それに、たとえ天国を知らないとはいえ、
And even though you know not Heaven, might it not be more desirable than death?
あなたは選んで知覚してきたように、
You have been as selective in your questioning as in your perception.
開かれた心は、こんなことをするよりもっと正直である。
An open mind is more honest than this.
自我は時間について奇妙な観念を持っているので、
The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin.
自我は過去のことに重きをおき、
The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful.
罪責感を重視するということは、
Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present.
過去のつぐないとして、将来罰をうけるという観念によれば、
By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present.
というのも、
For the ego regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.
「今」は自我にとって何の意味もない。
'Now' has no meaning to the ego.
今という時はただ昔味わった痛みなどを思い出させるだけであり、
The present merely reminds it of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past.
自我は過去から解放されることに耐えられないので、
The ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and although the past is over, the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present.
それにあなたが現在、
It dictates your reactions to those you meet in the present from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality.
その結果、あなたが自我の指図にしたがうとすれば、
In effect, if you follow the ego's dictates you will react to your brother as though he were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from recognising him as he is.
そしてあなたは自分の過去をもとにそのきょうだいから伝言を受け
And you will receive messages from him out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go.
かくして、あなたは今きょうだい一人ひとりが、
You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother offers you now.
過去からの影のようなすがた、
The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what you must escape.
そんなすがたは本物ではないし、
They are not real, and have no hold over you unless you bring them with you.
そんなものがあなたの心のなかに、何らかの痛みを留めておき、
They carry the spots of pain in your mind, directing you to attack in the present in retaliation for a past that is no more.
そして、
And this decision is one of future pain.
過去の痛みは錯覚だということを学ばないかぎり、
Unless you learn that past pain is an illusion, you are choosing a future of illusions and losing the many opportunities you could find for release in the present.
自我はあなたの悪夢を残しておいて、
The ego would preserve your nightmares, and prevent you from awakening and understanding they are past.
もしあなたが、
Would you recognise a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your own past?
あなたはだれとも遭遇するわけではないのだし、
For you would be meeting no one, and the sharing of salvation, which makes the encounter holy, would be excluded from your sight.
あなたはいつも自分自身と遭遇するのであり、
The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself, and the encounter is holy because you are.
自我は、あなたは常に自分の過去と出会うのだと教え、
The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and because your dreams were not holy, the future cannot be, and the present is without meaning.
聖霊が時間をどう知覚するのかみてみれば、
It is evident that the Holy Spirit's perception of time is the exact opposite of the ego's.
その理由も同じようにはっきりしている。というのも聖霊と自我は時間の目標を真っ向から対立するものと知
The reason is equally clear, for they perceive the goal of time as diametrically opposed.
聖霊は、
The Holy Spirit interprets time's purpose as rendering the need for time unnecessary.
時間の役目は一時的なもので、
He regards the function of time as temporary, serving only His teaching function, which is temporary by definition.
したがって聖霊は、無限に拡張し得る時間の一側面だけ強調する、
His emphasis is therefore on the only aspect of time that can extend to the infinite, for now is the closest approximation of eternity that this world offers.
過去や未来を除いた「今」こそ真実のすがたであるとするうちに、
It is in the reality of 'now', without past or future, that the beginning of the appreciation of eternity lies.
あるのは「今」だけであって、ただ「今」
For only 'now' is here, and only 'now' presents the opportunities for the holy encounters in which salvation can be found.
その一方自我は、
The ego, on the other hand, regards the function of time as one of extending itself in place of eternity, for like the Holy Spirit, the ego interprets the goal of time as its own.
自らの指図のもと、過去と未来が継続するということこそ、
The continuity of past and future, under its direction, is the only purpose the ego perceives in time, and it closes over the present so that no gap in its own continuity can occur, Its continuity, then, would keep you in time, while the Holy Spirit would release you from it.
もしあなたが聖霊の救いの目標を分かち合うつもりなら、
It is His interpretation of the means of salvation that you must learn to accept, if you would share His goal of salvation for you.
そしてあなたも自分の役目を解釈するように、
You, too, will interpret the function of time as you interpret yours.
もしあなたが時間の世界において、
If you accept your function in the world of time as one of healing, you will emphasise only the aspect of time in which healing can occur.
過去にもどって癒すことなどできない。
Healing cannot be accomplished in the past.
未来を手放すには、今ここで癒されなければならない。
It must be accomplished in the present to release the future.
こうした解釈が未来を現在に結びつけ、
This interpretation ties the future to the present, and extends the present rather than the past.
しかしあなたが自分の役目は破壊することだと解釈するなら、
But if you interpret your function as destruction, you will lose sight of the present and hold on to the past to ensure a destructive future.
そして時間はあなたが解釈するとおりになる、
And time will be as you interpret it, for of itself it is nothing.
