The
search for the special relationship is the sign that you equate yourself with the ego and
not with God. For the special relationship has value only to the ego. To the ego, unless a
relationship has special value it has no meaning, for it perceives all love as special.
Yet this cannot be natural, for it is unlike the relationship of God and His Son, and all
relationships that are unlike this one must be unnatural. For God
created love as He would have it be, and gave it as it is. Love has no meaning except as
its Creator defined it by His Will. It is impossible to define it otherwise and understand
it.
Love
is freedom. To look for it by placing yourself in bondage is to separate yourself from it.
For the Love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage!
As you release, so will you be released. Forget this not, or love will be unable to find
you and comfort you.
There
is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks your help, if you would have His. The holy instant
is His most helpful aid in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the real lure in
the special relationship. You do not recognize that this is its real appeal, for the ego
has taught you that freedom lies in it. Yet the closer you look at the special
relationship, the more apparent it becomes that it must foster guilt and therefore must
imprison.
The
special relationship is totally meaningless without a body. If you value it, you must also
value the body. And what you value you will keep. The special relationship is a device for
limiting your self to a body, and for limiting your perception of others to theirs. The
Great Rays would establish the total lack of value of the special relationship, if they
were seen. For in seeing them the body would disappear, because its value would be lost.
And so your whole investment in seeing it would be withdrawn from it.
You
see the world you value. On this side of the bridge you see the world of separate bodies,
seeking to join each other in separate unions and to become one by losing. When two
individuals seek to become one, they are trying to decrease their magnitude. Each would
deny his power, for the separate union excludes the universe. Far more is left outside
than would be taken in, for God is left without and nothing taken
in. If one such union were made in perfect faith, the universe would enter into it. Yet
the special relationship the ego seeks does not include even one whole individual. The ego
wants but part of him, and sees only this part and nothing else.
Across
the bridge it is so different! For a time the body is still seen, but not exclusively, as
it is seen here. The little spark that holds the Great Rays within it is also visible, and
this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. Once you have crossed the bridge, the
value of the body is so diminished in your sight that you will see no need at all to
magnify it. For you will realize that the only value the body has is to enable you to
bring your brothers to the bridge with you, and to be released together there.
The
bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in the perspective of reality. On this
side, everything you see is grossly distorted and completely out of perspective. What is
little and insignificant is magnified, and what is strong and powerful cut down to
littleness. In the transition there is a period of confusion, in which a sense of actual
disorientation may occur. But fear it not, for it means only that you have been willing to
let go your hold on the distorted frame of reference that seemed to hold your world
together. This frame of reference is built around the special relationship. Without this
illusion there could be no meaning you would still seek here.
Fear
not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality. Time is kind, and if you
use it on behalf of reality, it will keep gentle pace with you in your transition. The
urgency is only in dislodging your mind from its fixed position here. This will not leave
you homeless and without a frame of reference. The period of disorientation, which
precedes the actual transition, is far shorter than the time it took to fix your mind so
firmly on illusions. Delay will hurt you now more than before, only because you realize it
is delay, and that escape from pain is really possible. Find hope
and comfort, rather than despair, in this: You could not long find even the illusion of
love in any special relationship here. For you are no longer wholly insane, and you would
soon recognize the guilt of self-betrayal for what it is.
Nothing
you seek to strengthen in the special relationship is really part of you. And you cannot
keep part of the thought system that taught you it was real, and understand the Thought
that knows what you are. You have allowed the Thought of your
reality to enter your mind, and because you invited it, it will abide with you. Your love
for it will not allow you to betray yourself, and you could not enter into a relationship
where it could not go with you, for you would not want to be apart from it.
Be
glad you have escaped the mockery of salvation the ego offered you, and look not back with
longing on the travesty it made of your relationships. Now no one need suffer, for you
have come too far to yield to the illusion of the beauty and holiness of guilt. Only the
wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus.
What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and
beauty there. And be you thankful that there is a place where
truth and beauty wait for you. Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you
for the simple willingness to give up nothing because it is
nothing.
The
new perspective you will gain from crossing over will be the understanding of where Heaven
is. From this side, it seems to be outside and across the bridge.
Yet as you cross to join it, it will join with you and become one with you. And you will
think, in glad astonishment, that for all this you gave up nothing! The
joy of Heaven, which has no limit, is increased with each light that returns to take its
rightful place within it. Wait no longer, for the Love of God and you.
And may the holy instant speed you on the way, as it will surely do if you but let it
come to you.
The
Holy Spirit asks only this little help of you: Whenever your thoughts wander to a special
relationship which still attracts you, enter with Him into a holy instant, and there let
Him release you. He needs only your willingness to share His perspective to give it to you
completely. And your willingness need not be complete because His is perfect. It is His
task to atone for your unwillingness by His perfect faith, and it is His faith you share
with Him there. Out of your recognition of your unwillingness for your release, His
perfect willingness is given you. Call upon Him, for Heaven is at His call. And let Him
call on Heaven for you.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 16