February 21, 2017

We continue looking at the special relationship.  The special love relationship is the one that is the most deceiving.  We must first realize that all special relationships involve a great deal of pain.  If we are experiencing pain in any relationship, we can be sure that there is some aspect of specialness to that relationship we need to look at.  If there is pain, healing is needed.  Anxiety, despair, guilt and attack all enter into a special relationship, yet there are also periods where they appear to be gone and we have a sense of temporary peace for a time.  But the sense of peace is at best temporary without a real healing of the relationship taking place.  Whatever form pain takes in a special relationship, they are all an attack on the self to make the other feel guilty.  In this aspect, we always sabotage our special relationships, making them blow up in our face.  We will always find disappointment in special relationships.

Very simply, the attempt to make guilty is always directed against God.  For the ego would have you see God, and God alone, as guilty, leaving the Us open to attack and unprotected from it.  The special love relationship is the ego’s chief weapon for keeping you from Heaven.  It does not appear to be a weapon, but if you consider how you value it and why, you will realize what it must be.   T-16.V.2:1-4

The special love relationship is the ego’s most treasured gift, having the most appeal to those unwilling to relinquish guilt.  The “dynamics” of the egoic thought system are clearest here.  The fantasies that center around the special love relationship are often quite overt.  Here they are judged to be acceptable and even natural.  No one considers it bizarre to love and hate together, and even those who believe that hate is sin merely feel guilty, but do not correct it.  This is the “natural” condition of the separation, and those who learn that it is not natural at all seem to be the unnatural ones.  For this world is the opposite of Heaven, this world being made to be its opposite, and everything in this world takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true.  In Heaven, where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as union.  Here, where the illusion of love is accepted in love’s place, love is perceived as separation and exclusion.

It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for special love from God, that the ego’s hatred triumphs.  For the special relationship is the renunciation of the Love of God, and the attempt to secure for the self the specialness that God denies.  The reality of Love is in union, but the effect of special love is separation.  No one can have union and separation together.  They are polar opposites and thus special love blocks our awareness of Heaven where real Love is all.

To everyone Heaven is completion.  There can be no disagreement on this, because both the ego and the Holy Spirit accept it.  They are, however, in complete disagreement on what completion is, and how it is accomplished.  The Holy Spirit knows that completion lies first in union, and then in the extension of union.  To the ego completion lies in triumph, and in the extension of the “victory” even to the final triumph over God.  In this it sees the ultimate freedom of the self, for nothing would remain to interfere with the ego.  This is its idea of Heaven.  And therefore union, which is a condition in which the ego cannot interfere, must be hell.   T-16.V.5:1-8

The egoic thought system’s triumph over God is its triumph over your awareness of who you really are.  The special love relationship is its way to keep us aligned with the mistaken idea of separation, keeping us from the awareness of our completion.  It is our choice for completion, whether now or later, to leave the special love relationship behind and enter into the awareness of Heaven on earth and the awareness of who we really are.  Make your choice sooner rather than later and step into the awareness of your completion;

February 14, 2017

We have been looking at the illusion and the reality of love.  How could love be both illusion and realty?  We have made up a false idea of love in an effort to thwart hate or at least keep ourselves safe from hate.  Pursuing a love that recognizes hate as real denies us the awareness of real love.  Hate cannot exist in the presence of real love, for real love is all there is.  In reality, hate just isn’t.  Eternal or unconditional love is all consuming.  It is what we are.  Love is the state of Heaven and who and what we are.  We can’t get rid of real love, but we can deny it by thinking that hate exists and thus blocking our awareness of love.  We may think we can overcome hate by defeating it with love that tries to defeat hate.  But any love that tries to defeat hate is as illusory as the hate it seeks to overcome.

We have been told of the bridge to our union with our Self.

The bridge that leads to union in yourself must lead to knowledge, for it was built with the One beside you, and will lead you straight to the One where your completion rests, wholly compatible with the One’s completeness.  Every illusion you accept into your mind by judging it to be attainable removes your own sense of completion, and thus denies the Wholeness of your Creator.  Every fantasy, be it of love or hate, deprives you of knowledge for fantasies are the veil behind which truth is hidden.  To lift the veil that seems so dark and heavy, it is only needful to value truth beyond all fantasy, and to be entirely unwilling to settle for illusion in place of truth.   T-16.IV.10:1-4

We have chosen to settle for illusion through our denial of our Oneness.  In settling we have chosen to believe we are limited, broken and less than holy.  We have chosen to believe that we are less than who and what we really are.  Because of that choice, we ae unaware of the truth of who we are.  We have blocked our awareness of our divine nature and all that entails.  The Holy Spirit -the Higher Holy Spirit Self – within us is waiting for us to decide we are willing to change our perception of ourselves and rejoin with each other in the awareness of our Oneness again.  There is nothing to lose but our unhappiness and fear.  There is nothing for us to lose except the illusions we hold about ourselves and this world.  Who would not want to rejoin this Oneness?

The quality of our relationships tells us where we have placed our allegiance.  Are we aligned with our special hate and love relationships?  Are these special relationships giving us the peace and joy and love we are seeking?  Are they opening us to the divine nature within us?  This needless journey is nearly over.  Take the hand of Spirit and turn firmly away from all illusions now, and let nothing stand in the way of truth.  We will take the last useless journey away from truth together, and then together we go straight to the One, in joyous answer to the One’s Call for our completion.

If special relationships of any kind would hinder the One’s completion, can they have any value to you?  What would interfere with the One must interfere with you.  Only in time does interference in the One’s completion seem to be possible.  The bridge that the One would carry you across lifts you from time into eternity.  Waken from time, and answer fearlessly the Call of the One Who gave eternity to you in your creation.  On this side of the bridge to timelessness you understand nothing.  But as you step lightly across it, upheld by timelessness, you are directed straight to the Heart of the One.  At its center, and only there, you are safe forever, because you are complete forever.  There is no veil the Love of the One in us together cannot lift.  The way to truth is open.  Follow it with me.  T-16.IV.13:1-11

There is no more need for hate or a love that tries to defeat hate.  The timelessness and limitlessness of our Divine nature is within us.  It has always been within us.  Let go of the illusion of love our special relationships appear to give us and look within to the perfection that is there as we join with each other in eternal love.  And allow that love to be evident in all we say and do.  Allow yourself to step on that bridge to completion and allow yourself to be carried there.  This is your way home.

February 7, 2017

Real Love is not an illusion.  It is eternal.  It is unconditional.  It has no opposites.  It is all encompassing.  Nothing can destroy this love.  It is always with us, even when we think we can’t see or feel it.  The worst we can do is block it from our awareness.  But, it will always be within us waiting below the surface for us to release the blocks we have made that hide it from our awareness.  Are we willing to look within and see the barriers we have made in our minds that block our awareness of the incredible love within is?  This love within us is limitless, complete and peaceful.  It is a love we can rest in, knowing it will never let us down and that it will heal our minds as we let go of all the illusions of special love and hate relationships we thought would protect and save us.  Real love need never triumph, for there is nothing real to triumph over.  We may believe that “special love” will triumph over “special hate”, but both are illusions and therefore not real.  Love just is, and what an is love is.

As long as the illusion of hatred lasts in our minds, love will be an illusion to us.  The only choice remaining possible is which illusion we prefer.  However, there is no conflict in the choice between truth and illusion.  Seen in these terms, we would hesitate.  But conflict enters our minds the instant the choice seems to be one between illusions.  But this choice does not matter.  Where one choice is as dangerous as the other, the decision must be one of despair.  We have another choice.  We can choose to release our belief in these contrasting illusions.  We can choose to see our choice differently.  The Course tells us what our task is.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.  It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is false.  Every illusion is one of fear, whatever form it takes.  And the attempt to escape from one illusion into another must fail.  If you seek love outside yourself you can be certain that you perceive hatred within, and are afraid of it.  Yet peace will never come from the illusion of love, but only from its reality.   T-16.IV.6:1-6

We must recognize the following, for it is true, and truth must be recognized if it is to be distinguished from illusion:  The special love relationship is an attempt to bring love into separation.  And, as such, it is nothing more than an attempt to bring love into fear, and make it real in fear.  The belief in fear – the idea that we have anything real to fear – is a sure way to block our awareness of the truth of real love within us.

Heaven waits silently, and your creations are holding out their hands to help you cross and welcome them.  For it is they you seek.  You seek but for your own completion, and it is they who render you complete.  The special love relationship is but a shabby substitute for what makes you whole in truth, not in illusion.  Your relationship with them is without guilt, and this enables you to look on all your sisters and brothers with gratitude, because your creations were created in union with them.  Acceptance of your creations is the acceptance of the Oneness of creation, without which you could never be complete.  No specialness can offer you what the One has given, and what you are joined with the One in giving.   T-16.IV.8:1-6

Be willing to look within and release your attachment to the barriers you have placed in your mind to your awareness of the eternal love within you.  Allow yourself to approach the bridge in your mind to the union of Oneness.  Reach for the hands reaching out to you to help you cross.  It is the bridge to the awareness of your completeness, your wholeness and the awareness of love and peace.  It is the bridge to the awareness of who you really are in Oneness.  This is our holy Will, to join with all Creation in the awareness of our Oneness.  Wait no longer and step up to that bridge.  This is what you have always been seeking.  Choose it now.