February 28, 2017
The Course tells us there is no hell. Hell is not real, has no power and is an illusion. Yet, we certainly feel like there is a hell and we seem to dwell there at times. What’s up with this? The Course tells us again and again that we are whole, complete and undefiled. The Course tells us it is impossible for us to be defiled or damaged in any way. We are and always will be whole for eternity, for our divine nature is eternal. Only our choice to perceive ourselves as anything but perfect and whole keeps the awareness of our true Self blocked from our consciousness. Our egoic thought system, made by our own perception, uses our power of perception to make an alternate “reality” that we believe is real. Its goal is to keep us distracted from, even in denial of, who we really are to make a god-like identity in contrast with and separated from our true Identity. It also devises a myriad of methods for perpetuating and convincing us of the seeming reality of this alternate identity. The Course explains how the egoic thought system uses special relationships this way:
The special relationship is a strange and unnatural ego device for joining hell and Heaven, and making them indistinguishable. And the attempt to find the imagined “best” of both worlds has merely led to fantasies of both, and to the inability to perceive either as it is. The special relationship is the triumph of this confusion. It is a kind of union from which union is excluded, and the basis for the attempt at union rests on exclusion. What better example could there be of the ego’s maxim, “Seek but do not find”? T-16.V.6:1-5
The special relationship, no matter what form it takes, is a device the egoic thought system uses to seek the self’s completion. It is nothing more than a ruse, but a most convincing ruse when we have chosen to deny the completeness of our true Identity. When we enter into a special relationship, we believe that we will take something from the other in this relationship that will complete ourselves. In the case of a special love relationship the other is made responsible for our happiness. As long as the other continues to make us happy we feel we are in Heaven. Yet the minute the other fails to make us happy, we see them as guilty of failing us. We make them responsible for our unhappiness. We may try to resolve their failure through therapy or a myriad of other tactics that avoid the real issue, but the special relationship is doomed to failure. We are essentially trading our self for the self of another. When that doesn’t work we then trade the self we don’t want for the self of even another! We’re attempting to solve the problem by choosing to repeat the action that caused the problem in the first place. It will fail again and again until we change our mind about the solution.
The conviction of littleness lies in every special relationship, for only the deprived could value specialness. The demand for specialness, and the perception of the giving of specialness as an act of love, would make love hateful. The real purpose of the special relationship, in strict accordance with the ego’s goals, is to destroy reality and substitute illusion. For the ego is itself an illusion, and only illusions can be the witnesses to its “reality.” T-16.V.9:2-5
The root of the problem lies in the fact that we do not value our true Self – we believe in our littleness. We do not value our divine nature and its union with all Creation enough to look within to the value that is within us that cannot be surpassed. Our divine nature is unlimited. It is Love in all its unconditional glory. Love is completion in itself and needs no further completion. Do not think that relationships themselves are wrong, for relationships are either special or holy. Releasing our egoic goals for a special relationship and letting Spirit show us that we are already joined in unconditional union is the miracle of healing. Our choice for completion is the recognition that our choice for union with each other and all of Creation is the miracle of healing that is our completion. This is not an action in which we must put great effort, but a surrender to the awareness of our eternal completion rising within us. We have always been and always will be complete. We need merely remove the blocks to our awareness of our divine nature in Oneness.
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