December 20, 2016

The season of Christmas has many different meanings for each of us.  Let us think, for a moment, that the Christ child being born into this temporal world symbolizes our innocence being reborn into our minds that have denied our innocence in the belief in separation.  Christmas symbolizes our reawakening to our true nature, innocent, complete and whole.  Our true nature is not affected by the world.  Our true nature is unchangeable.  Our awareness of our true nature may only be temporarily blocked by our belief in separation.  May we be willing again and again, as many times as it takes, to release our rigid belief in that separate identity we made. And open ourselves to the awareness of the Divine being we truly are in Oneness.  We must simply release the need for the world outside us to be at peace before we recognize the Divine peace within us.  The world around us has only one Holy purpose – to guide us to the awakening of the Divine essence of peace and love that eternally dwells within us.  This awakening is the meaning of Christmas.  Let this be the meaning of Christmas you hold this year.

We seek love, real unconditional love.  We seek love that has no judgement, that accepts us just as we are.  The love and peace that always dwells within us is such a love.  It does not see our shortcomings.  It sees us as we really are, the Divine essence in which we are created.  There can be nothing but love and peace there once we let go of everything else we have believed about ourselves.  The holy instant arises in our mind when we open our minds to this love and peace within us.

In the holy instant the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body’s interference, and where there is communication there is peace.  The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication.  And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice nothing, and communication, which must be of the mind, cannot be sacrificed.  Where, then, is sacrifice?  The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my brothers and sisters, is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere.  For communication embraces everything, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of itself.   T-15.XI.7:1-6

No longer need we sacrifice total love and peace and the awareness of who we really are for love and peace.  We need simply release the limitations we have placed in our minds and look within to the love and peace already there in Oneness.

Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of the Christ Spirit is meaningless apart from joy.  Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone, for so we offer others the love they offer us.  What can be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of nothing?  Such is the message of the time of Christmas.  Let us allow ourselves to be filled with the joy that rises within us as we look upon each other and the world with love and peace.  Let the Divine Oneness of all Creation enter our hearts and minds this Christmas season as we prepare to enter a new year and a new perception of the world around us.

This is the time in which a new year will soon be born from the time of Christ.  I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish.  Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and not destroy.  Say, then, to your brothers and sisters:

•  I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.
• I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.
• In the name of my freedom I choose your release, because I recognize that we will be released together.

 So will the year begin in joy and freedom.  There is much to do, and we have been long delayed.  Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening.  Make this year different by making it all the same.  And let all your relationships be made holy for you.  This is our will.  Amen.   T-15.XI.10:1-11

Accept complete freedom for yourself and all others today.  Enter into the awareness of Divine Oneness and communication.  All is healed in this moment and love and peace rise within us to shine brightly for all to share.  Maty you be the light you are this blessed Christmas.

December 6, 2016

We make our lives very complicated in our minds.  It is our complicated perception trying to rationalize all the conflicting perceptions in our minds without seeing the whole picture.  We also tend to look at each situation as unique needing a unique solution or answer to resolve it.  There is only one problem and there is only one solution resting at the base of each situation.  We believe we are separate and thus deny that we are all unified in Oneness.  We then look outside of ourselves to find whatever it is we think we need.  The truth is we have everything we need within us.  Rediscovering that truth is a rebirth to the awareness of who we really are and the one solution we seek.

We are One in the love we are.  We are One in the peace we are.  We find this by looking within us to the truth there.  We also recognize the truth within another as we see the truth about ourselves reflected in that another.  Spirit within us guides our minds if we will allow.  When we release our need to control the world from our perception, we see beyond the appearance of all forms to the truth that lies within each and every one of us no matter what we see, believe and project.  Forgiveness is the release of our rigid misperceptions, granting freedom to ourselves and each other.

You must choose between total freedom and total bondage, for there are no alternatives but these.  You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision you must make.  And yet it is the recognition of the decision, just as it is, that makes the decision so easy.  Salvation is simple, being of Oneness, and therefore very easy to understand.  Do not try to project it from you and see it outside yourself.  In you are both the question and the answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of Oneness.   T-15.X.9:3-8

The one sacrifice we make again and again is the sacrifice of our freedom and our peace of mind.  No more!  Choose again to see differently.  See the real You, One with all creation, and begin to see eternity and the infinite One you are in unity with all others in this creation.  Allow your own rebirth into the reawakening of the Divine One you really are.  Look to the Spirit within and recognize the whole, complete, limitless You full of love and at peace.  All that is not You will simply fade away from your mind.  Choose again and again to be the Oneness we all are.  This is what the season of Christmas symbolizes.

November 29, 2016

Reality, and eternity, is a perfect union of us and our Source – God – the One.  This perfect union is our natural state. It is who we really are.  This perfect union is communication, constant and unencumbered.  Separation is not possible in this perfect union for all is open and unlimited.  This is not a one-sided union as we may have been taught where one gives all and the other receives all.  In this perfect union, all is shared wholly.  Giving and receiving are one and the same and are limitless in the abundance of eternity.  The only thing that keeps us from the awareness of this limitlessness is our belief that we need to be separate and carve out a piece of this limitlessness as our identity separate from everything.  If we really look at this idea, we will realize that we are settling for something much less than what is already ours.

It is in your power, in time, to delay the perfect union of the Creator and the One Child.  For in this world, the attraction of guilt does stand between them.  Neither time nor season means anything in eternity.  But here it is the Holy Spirit’s function to use them both, though not as the ego uses them.  This is the season when you would celebrate my birth into the world.  Yet you know not how to do it.  Let the Holy Spirit teach you, and let me celebrate your birth through the Holy Spirit.  The only gift I can accept of you is the gift I gave to you.  Release me as I choose your own release.  The time of Christ we celebrate together, for it has no meaning if we are apart.   T-15.X.1:1-10

We are entering the season of Christmas.  It is a time when Christianity celebrates the birth of Jesus into the world.  We believed that we were hopelessly sinful and that it would take a grand sacrifice to make us acceptable in the sight of God.  What we really needed was a change of perception to make God acceptable and equal to us.  This means raising our perception of ourselves to the level of God as we are created and always have been rather than bringing God down to the level of our mistaken perception.  The purpose of Jesus’ birth into this world was to show us that we are whole, complete, holy and limitless, and to teach us how to change the way we perceive ourselves and each other to reach that perception and accept it for who we really are.

One Christmas season, our pastor set up the Christmas scene so people would pass the manger where Jesus lay on their way to receive communion.  As each one walked past and gazed into the manger, they saw, looking back at them, their own reflection in a mirror placed there.  The message?  We are each the Christ in this world.  When we release our attachment to separation and are willing to rejoin in Oneness, we are the savior of each other as we see each other and ourselves as we truly are – sinless, whole, complete, holy and limitless.  We are One with each other and our Source in Oneness.  What gift could be better?

We who are One cannot give separately.  When we are willing to accept our relationship as real, saparation will hold no attraction for us.  For in our union we will accept all our sisters and brothers.  The gift of union is the only gift that Jesus was born to give.

It is in your power to make this season holy, for it is in your power to make the time of Christ be now.  It is possible to do this all at once because there is but one shift in perception that is necessary, for you made but one mistake.  It seems like many, but it is all the same.  For though the ego takes many forms, it is always the same idea.  What is not love is always fear, and nothing else.   T-15.X.4:1-5

Let your mind join in Oneness as Spirit guides you to the awareness of who you really are.  Let this be a season of rebirth in the knowledge of your wholeness, completeness, holiness and abundance.  Let the holy instant be reborn in your mind and let it carry you into eternity.  This is in your power now!

November 22, 2016

The Course teaches us in lesson 61 in the Workbook that I am the light of the world.  Is there anything limiting about this?  We are all unlimited.  Yet we continue to see ourselves as bodies.  We continue to see each other as bodies, limited by our own belief.  And we fail to notice the Great Rays shining from each One we encounter, so unlimited they reach all of creation and all the universe.  There is nothing that is not touched by the Great Rays that shine from each of our brothers and sisters, unlimited in their wholeness, their completeness, their holiness and love.  It is our own stubborn belief that we are bodies that keep our minds blocked from the grandeur of our true essence.  Spirit is waiting for our willingness to release our minds from the prison of our belief in separation, wailing to flood our awareness with the Great Rays of Oneness that we have blocked form our perception.  Are you willing to release the beliefs you hold to so tightly in this world?

The holy instant is a brief moment, given to us by Spirit, when we release all our perceptions of separation and experience communication in Oneness for just an instant.  It is a glimpse pf our true Self, free of limitations, full of love and peace.  It may scare us so that we immediately revert to the perception of dividedness we know so well and are accustomed to. We fear forgiveness for it exposes us to the freedom of Oneness.  Yet we cherish the peace and love of the holy instant.  It reminds us of who we really are even though we don’t recognize ourselves in it.  Spirit is calling to us to trust in Its purpose to bring forgiveness to our minds and reawaken to the Great Rays of light we all are.  What a beautiful awakening that is if we are willing to release our attachment to the belief we are bodies, the symbols of our belief in separation and division.

Our task is but to continue, as fast as possible, the necessary process of looking straight at all the interference and seeing it exactly as it is.  For it is impossible to recognize as wholly without gratification what you think you want.  The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of the separation.  And both are nothing more than attempts to limit communication, and thereby to make it impossible.  For communication must be unlimited in order to have meaning, and deprived of meaning, it will not satisfy you completely.  Yet it remains the only means by which you can establish real relationships, which have no limits, having been established by God.    T-15.IX.2:1-6

We cannot perceive ourselves divided and be whole.  It is impossible to see two opposing ideas at one time.  We are One with God and all creation.  There is nothing in this world that can separate us from the Oneness we are.  And everything, yes everything, in this world, including the bodies we see, has a purpose as a learning tool if we will allow Spirit to guide our minds in Its teaching.  As we allow each holy instant to come to us and rest in the peace it shows us, we can begin to allow forgiveness to well up within us and show the true essence of each of our brothers and sister, revealing the Great Rays that shine from deep within all of us, infusing our minds with the unlimited peace and love that reveal eternity within us.

We cannot divide our strength between Heaven and hell, God and the egoic though system, and experience the fullness of our creative power.  When we attempt to divide our power, it cannot resonate in Oneness for to divide it is to limit it.  Our Oneness surges in the holy instant as we allow our true essence to arise in us.  Allow that instant to extend as we allow Spirit to guide the healing of our minds and welcome the Great Rays of Oneness that extend from our brothers and sisters and, yes, us as we join in the awareness of the One within all of us and extend the love and peace of eternity to all.  Be the light of the world you are.

November 15, 2016

Many of us have felt some degree of upset during the past week.  We have allowed ourselves to forget that we are all One.  We have allowed ourselves to revert to our egoic belief in separation and the walls we believe separate us from each other.  It can be challenging, but nothing need block us from the awareness of our peace of mind unless we lose sight of our Oneness.  The Couse teaches us that everything in the world has a purpose in guiding us back to the awareness of who we really are if we will allow Spirit to guide our minds.  Relationships may have become challenging in the wake of our upset because we allowed our egoic thought system to govern our thoughts and feelings.  This happens without thinking as we wallow in the upset we feel.  Love and compassion go out the window as we sink into the upset.  Yet, there is no harm that can come to our true nature.  No one or thing can destroy the true essence of who we really are, whole complete, limitless and free in the love we truly are.  We have simply forgotten to be the love we are.  We are divine because we are One.  Listen to Jennifer Hadley’s prayer, Because we are One, posted on Sunday.

Everything in this world has a holy purpose for us in our release.  Many things may appear to make our life difficult in this world, yet Spirit can use each and every thing to teach us our release from the bonds that seem to bind us.  Our belief that we are victims of the circumstances of the world around us limits our awareness of who we really are and the freedom of our Divine nature.  The Course describes Spirit’s role in the healing of our minds and the holy instant.

The holy instant does not replace the need for learning, for the Holy Spirit must not leave you as your Teacher until the holy instant has extended far beyond time.  For a teaching assignment such as this, Spirit must use everything in this world for your release.  Spirit must side with every sign or token of your willingness to learn of Spirit what the truth must be.  Spirit is swift to utilize whatever you offer on behalf of this.  Spirit’s concern and care for you are limitless.  In the face of your fear of forgiveness, which Spirit perceives as clearly as Spirit knows forgiveness is release, Spirit will teach you to remember that forgiveness is not loss, but your salvation.  And that in complete forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, you are absolved completely.   T-15.VIII.1:1-7

As long as we remain in this temporal world, we are in learning and teaching mode.  Every encounter, every experience, every relationship is an opportunity to choose to be the love we are and extend that love to each other.  As we allow the healing of our thoughts we allow the healing of our relationships into the only real relationship we can have – holy relationships.  This is the only real relationship.  Any other is imbued with the conditions our egoic thought system has placed on it.  The relationship them becomes “special” or unhealed.  Spirit within us will guide us in releasing all limitations we have bound it with and bring its healing in our Oneness.

Spirit is our teacher in this healing.  Spirit dwells within us.  Spirit is not outside of us, so look within to the light within you that is your Spirit and welcome the truth that dwells there.

In the Holy Spirit alone lies the awareness of what God cannot know, and what you do not understand.  It is Spirit’s holy function to accept them both, and by removing every element of disagreement, to join them into one.  Spirit will do this because it is Its function.  Leave, then, what seems to you to be impossible, to the One Who knows it must be possible because it is the Will of God.  And let the One Whose teaching is only of God teach you the only meaning of relationships.  For God created the only relationship that has meaning, and that is God’s relationship with you.   T-15.VIII.6:1-6

We are all One with God in Oneness.  Every relationship we have in this world is meant to be a reflection of that One Holy Relationship.  If any relationship appears not to be so, we need simply ask Spirit to enter and transform that relationship.  If we are willing, we will see it in a different light that transcends its appearance in this temporal world.  The holy instant is just the beginning of the awareness of our One Real Relationship that joins all that is real into Oneness.  Allow Spirit to rise in your mind and guide you in the transcendence of all your relationships into the One Real Relationship – Oneness.

November 8, 2016

One of the things we try to combat in this world is loneliness.  Most of the time we do not want to feel lonely.  So, we try to resolve loneliness by being with other people.  This may make sense in the temporal world, but it often disappoints us.  Those we have chosen to make us feel not lonely, often let us down or disappoint us.  Then we blame them for the loneliness we experience.  The Course explains that what we are doing is trying to avoid loneliness by joining bodies while trying to keep separate minds and hiding thoughts from each other.  We are looking for communication while we are hiding part of ourselves from each other, even those we think we want to join with.

The Course teaches us we are One in the Mind of God, the One.  Our true nature is divine as we are One with the Divine.  The Course also teaches we are not bodies, but thoughts of God.  Because we are of the One Mind, we are in constant communication with our Source and each other through the One Mind we all share.  Because we are One, we are inseparable and cannot sever communication.  Yet, we have believed the mistaken idea that we are separate and have blocked our awareness of our Oneness and our communication in the One Mind.  So, we try to reestablish communication through the body and a separate identity we made.  We also try to protect ourselves from each other by hiding some of our thoughts we feel would jeopardize the temporal connections with others we have established on the lower or physical level.  Thus, have we “sacrificed” what is real – Oneness – for something less – special relationships.  The basis of this mistake is the fear of loneliness.  We also believe that we must keep our minds private or we will lose them.

As we remain attached to the idea that we are all bodies, we keep each other imprisoned in the idea that we are bodies and separate.  We keep each other imprisoned in the idea that communication happens at the temporal or lower physical level and keep our awareness of true communication and our true nature blocked.  Forgiveness – the healing of the mind – cannot happen at the temporal level, for it transcends the lower level and heals at the spiritual level.  As long as we remain attached to the physical identity we made, we will remain unaware of our true identity and our divine nature.  Forgiveness is the shift in awareness from seeing each other as separate to realizing we are all One and that all that is real is shared.  We are whole, complete, limitless and divine.  Love and peace dwell within us and we will realize that fact when we allow Spirit to guide our thoughts.  This may seem impossible now, but it is realized in the holy instant.

It is through the holy instant that what seems impossible is accomplished, making it evident that it is not impossible.  In the holy instant guilt holds no attraction, since communication has been restored.  And guilt, whose only purpose is to disrupt communication, has no function here.  Here there is no concealment, and no private thoughts.  The willingness to communicate attracts communication to it, and overcomes loneliness completely.  There is complete forgiveness here, for there is no desire to exclude anyone from your completion, in sudden recognition of the value of their part in it.  In the protection of your wholeness, all are invited and made welcome.  And you understand that your completion is God’s, Whose only need is to have you be complete.  For your completion makes you God’s in your awareness.  And here it is that you experience yourself as you were created, and as you are.   T-15.VII.14:1-10

Allow the desire for true communication to rise in your mind.  Allow Spirit to guide you in forgiveness and heal your mind into the awareness of the Oneness you are.  Experience the love and peace that well up within you as you release all from the imprisonment of your belief in separation.  We are all One, and all is well in the awareness of Oneness.

November 1, 2016

How many times have we “sacrificed” something for another or for the greater good?  Do we sacrifice anything real and eternal?  If we look with different eyes on what we “sacrifice” we might see that it is something that is not real at all, but temporary and physical.  Our ego, which we see as our identity and believe to be who we are, relies on the idea that sacrifice is necessary.  The Course tells us this about ego, sacrifice and relationships:

In one way or another, every relationship the ego makes is based on the idea that by sacrificing itself, it becomes bigger.  The “sacrifice,” which it regards as purification, is actually the root of its bitter resentment.  For it would prefer to attack directly, and avoid delaying what it really wants.  Yet the ego acknowledges “reality” as it sees it, and recognizes that no one could interpret direct attack as love.  Yet to make guilty is direct attack, although it does not seem to be.  For the guilty expect attack, and having asked for it they are attracted to it.   T-15.VII.6L1-6

One of the mistakes we often make is to think the ego is independent from each of us.  The ego is an idea we made and convinced ourselves is not of our making and thus is beyond our control.  We each gave and continuously give our egoic thought system the control we think it has over our thinking and believe it is out of our control.  The idea of sacrifice is clearly imbued with the belief in lack and scarcity, though we are unwilling to see this obvious condition.  Our relationships in this world are where we get to demonstrate what we believe about ourselves and each other.  If we believe sacrifice is necessary, we will sacrifice to seek love.

In such insane relationships, the attraction of what we do not want seems to be much stronger than the attraction of what we do want.  For each one thinks that they have sacrificed something to the other, and hates them for it.  Yet this is what we think we want.  We are not in love with the other at all.  We merely believe we are in love with sacrifice.  Thus, we can blame each other for the sacrifice we have made for the other in our search for what we want when we don’t find it there.

Whenever you are angry, you can be sure that you have formed a special relationship which the ego has “blessed,” for anger is its blessing.  Anger takes many forms, but it cannot long deceive those who will learn that love brings no guilt at all, and what brings guilt cannot be love and must be anger.  All anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty, and this attempt is the only basis the ego accepts for special relationships.  Guilt is the only need the ego has, and as long as you identify with it, guilt will remain attractive to you.  Yet remember this; to be with a body is not communication.  And if you think it is, you will feel guilty about communication and will be afraid to hear the Holy Spirit, recognizing in Its Voice your own need to communicate.   T-15.VII.10:1-6

What blessing do we really want?  Do we want the ego’s blessing – anger, or do we want Spirit’s blessing – love?  Sunday’s ACIM Weekly Thought was:

“Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual.”   (T-1.I.12:1-3)

Will we align our relationships with the lower or physical level or the higher or spiritual level?  Our experience will tell us which we choose.  It is our choice to release the lower or physical level and give up sacrifice and choose the higher or spiritual level.  It is the difference between “special” and holy relationships.  Release your need to sacrifice and offer the miracle of a healed relationship free of attack, guilt and sacrifice.  Real love will become apparent in that release.

October 25, 2016

 The Course tells us we are Host to God in this world.  Yet our egoic thought system also demands that we be host to it.  The ego counsels, therefore, that if we are host to it, it will enable us to direct its anger outward, thus protecting us.  And thus, it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special relationships, forged out of anger and dedicated to but one insane belief; that the more anger we invest outside ourselves, the safer we become.  If we choose to be host to our egoic thought system, we cannot see that we are Host to God, for the ego is not real and cannot exist in the presence of our awareness of our role as Host to God.

It is this chain of special relationships that binds us to guilt and thus the denial of our holiness.  We block our own awareness of our divine nature by continually placing our faith in the idea that we must give something up in us that is “bad” and replacing it with something from outside us that will save us.  Truly, what we are seeking we already have, but deny.  What we believe about ourselves, that we are unholy and flawed, is merely not true and impossible.  How could One who is One with God be unholy or flawed?  The reality of our divine nature cannot be undone, yet we believe it has been.  Every time we make a relationship “special” or unholy and project any expectation on it we erect a barrier to the expression of Love in that relationship.  Isn’t it about time to allow each of our relationships to be transformed from special to holy?  Every relationship is an opportunity for the miracle of healing, for transformation.

It is this chain that binds Us to guilt, and it is this chain the Holy Spirit would remove from our holy mind.  For the chain of savagery belongs not around the chosen host of God, who cannot make themselves host to the ego.  In the name of our release, and in the Name of the One Who would release us, let us look more closely at the relationships the egoic thought system contrives, and let the Holy Spirit judge them truly.  For it is certain that if we will look at them, we will offer them gladly to Spirit.  What Spirit can make of them we do not know, but we will become willing to find out, if we are willing first to perceive what we have made of them.   T-15.VII.5:1-5

How often have we believed that we must give up or sacrifice something to find peace or love?  We firmly believe that nothing good can be gained without sacrifice.  Yet we already are the peace and love we are looking for.  And all that stuff we believe we must sacrifice is inconsequential and not real at all.  The Course tells us this:

In one way or another, every relationship the ego makes is based on the idea that by sacrificing itself, it becomes bigger.  The “sacrifice,” which it regards as purification, is actually the root of its bitter resentment.  For it would prefer to attack directly, and avoid delaying what it really wants.  Yet the ego acknowledges “reality” as it sees it, and recognizes that no one could interpret direct attack as love.  Yet to make guilty is direct attack, although it does not seem to be.  For the guilty expect attack, and having asked for it they are attracted to it.   T-15.VII.6:1-6

The minute sacrifice enters any relationship, we become resentful, no matter how willing we are to make that sacrifice.  So, we go from relationship to relationship making unnecessary sacrifices until we become wiling to realize that we want something different.  Spirit is waiting for that moment.  Spirit is waiting for that realization that we want something different.  Ask Spirit to show you that something different.  Spirit will transform your mind and how you see those relationships.  They will be healed in your mind.  The reflection of that healing in the world will vary, but the miracle of transformation will take place in your mind.  Take a moment and pause.  Look within to the Higher Holy Spirit Self and allow each relationship to be healed.  All you need sacrifice is sacrifice itself.

October 18, 2016

Our lives in this world of form are full of relationships.  There are many, all at one time, and many that come one after another.  One thing we can say about most relationships is that they often let us down.  We usually enter into relationships because we think we can get something from them or we feel obliged to give or pay something in return.  If we are honest with ourselves, they are all about seeking and getting love outside ourselves that we think we don’t have.  The Course tells us this about relationships.

Beyond the poor attraction of the special love relationship, and always obscured by it, is the powerful attraction of the Creator for Us.  There is no other love that can satisfy us, because there is no other love.  This is the only love that is fully given and fully returned.  Being complete, it asks nothing.  Being wholly pure, everyone joined in it has everything.  This is not the basis for any relationship in which the ego enters.  For every relationship on which the ego embarks is special.   T-15.VII.1:1-7

We always seem to have some sort of attachments in our relationships.  This one will complete me.  This one will give me something I lack.  This one will release me from something or some obligation.  Yet each of these ideas about our relationships actually limits us by making us a slave to them.  We are seeking love in our relationships, yet we find ourselves captive to them.  Are any of our relationships really free of any obligations or conditions?  Are obligations and conditions the love we seek in our relationships?

Guilt is the tool our egoic thought system uses to maintain the “specialness” of relationships in our minds.  The Course has said before that the ego attempts to maintain and increase guilt, but in such a way that we do not recognize what it would do to us.  For it is the ego’s fundamental doctrine that what we do to others we have escaped.  What really happens is that what we do to others we do to ourselves.  So when we limit others by making obligations and conditions on our relationships, we are limiting ourselves and making ourselves captive to our “special” relationships.  Under these conditions, we certainly feel we have sacrificed for the love that we seek in our relationships.  We have essentially bound ourselves with the chains of guilt to the obligations and conditions of our special relationships and thus have seemed to sacrifice our freedom.

It is this chain that binds the One Child of God to guilt, and it is this chain the Holy Spirit would remove from our holy mind.  For the chain of savagery belongs not around the chosen host of God, who cannot make themselves host to the ego.  In the name of our release, and in the Name of the One Who would release us, let us look more closely at the relationships the egoic thought system contrives, and let the Holy Spirit judge them truly.  For it is certain that if we will look at them, we will offer them gladly to Spirit.  What Spirit can make of them we do not know, but we will become willing to find out, if we are willing first to perceive what we have made of them.   T-15.VII.5:1-5

We need not do this alone.  We cannot do this alone.  Once we are even a little willing to allow Spirit to guide us, our relationships will be transformed from limiting, conditional relationships to holy relationships where love is the freedom that looses all the chains we have limited them with.  Take a moment and step out of the captivity we have made for ourselves in our relationships and allow those relationships to be healed and transformed.  Eternal Love will be there at the core of each relationship, where it has always been, as we allow it to rise in our awareness.  No more do we need sacrifice our freedom to dwell in the awareness of Eternal Love.