God
established His relationship with you to make you happy, and nothing you do that does not
share His purpose can be real. The purpose God ascribed to anything is its only function.
Because of His reason for creating His relationship with you, the function of
relationships became forever “to make happy.” And nothing else. To fulfill this
function you relate to your creations as God to His. For nothing God created is apart from
happiness, and nothing God created but would extend happiness as its Creator did. Whatever
does not fulfill this function cannot be real.
In
this world it is impossible to create. Yet it is possible to make
happy. I have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not deprive you of your special
relationships, but would transform them. And all that is meant by that is that He will
restore to them the function given them by God. The function you have given them is
clearly not to make happy. But the holy relationship shares God’s purpose, rather
than aiming to make a substitute for it. Every special relationship you have made is a
substitute for God’s Will, and glorifies yours instead of His because of the illusion
that they are different.
You
have made very real relationships even in this world. Yet you do not recognize them
because you have raised their substitutes to such predominance that, when truth calls to
you, as it does constantly, you answer with a substitute. Every special relationship you
have made has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your mind so completely
that you will not hear the call of truth.
In a
sense, the special relationship was the ego’s answer to the creation of the Holy
Spirit, Who was God’s Answer to the separation. For although the ego did not
understand what had been created, it was aware of threat. The whole defense system the ego
evolved to protect the separation from the Holy Spirit was in response to the gift with
which God blessed it, and by His blessing enabled it to be healed. This blessing holds
within itself the truth about everything. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit is in
close relationship with you, because in Him is your relationship with God restored to you.
The relationship with Him has never been broken, because the Holy Spirit has not been
separate from anyone since the separation. And through Him have all your holy
relationships been carefully preserved, to serve God's purpose for you.
The
ego is always alert to threat, and the part of your mind into which the ego was accepted
is very anxious to preserve its reason, as it sees it. It does not realize that it is
totally insane. And you must realize just what this means if you would be restored to
sanity. The insane protect their thought systems, but they do so insanely. And all their
defenses are as insane as what they are supposed to protect. The separation has nothing in
it, no part, no “reason,” and no attribute that is not insane. And its
“protection” is part of it, as insane as the whole. The special relationship,
which is its chief defense, must therefore be insane.
You
have but little difficulty now in realizing that the thought system the special
relationship protects is but a system of delusions. You recognize, at least in general
terms, that the ego is insane. Yet the special relationship still seems to you somehow to
be “different.” Yet we have looked at it far closer than we have at many other
aspects of the ego's thought system that you have been more willing to let go. While this
one remains, you will not let the others go. For this one is not different. Retain this
one, and you have retained the whole.
It is
essential to realize that all defenses do what they would defend.
The underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they offer what they defend. What
they defend is placed in them for safe-keeping, and as they operate they bring it to you.
Every defense operates by giving gifts, and the gift is always a miniature of the thought
system the defense protects, set in a golden frame. The frame is very elaborate, all set
with jewels, and deeply carved and polished. Its purpose is to be of value in
itself, and to divert your attention from what it encloses. But the frame
without the picture you cannot have. Defenses operate to make you think you can.
The
special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all the defenses the ego
uses. Its thought system is offered here, surrounded by a frame so heavy and so elaborate
that the picture is almost obliterated by its imposing structure. Into the frame are woven
all sorts of fanciful and fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and
self-aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction. The glitter
of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds and gleam in the dim
light in which the offering is made.
Look
at the picture. Do not let the frame distract you. This gift is
given you for your damnation, and if you take it you will believe that you are
damned. You cannot have the frame without the picture. What you value is the frame, for
there you see no conflict. Yet the frame is only the wrapping for the gift of conflict.
The frame is not the gift. Be not deceived by the most superficial aspects of this thought
system, for these aspects enclose the whole, complete in every aspect. Death lies in this
glittering gift. Let not your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. Look at
the picture, and realize that death is offered you.
That
is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth. The truth itself needs no
defense, but you do need defense against your acceptance of the gift of death. When you
who are truth accept an idea so dangerous to truth, you threaten truth with destruction.
And your defense must now be undertaken, to keep truth whole. The power of Heaven, the
Love of God, the tears of Christ, and the joy of His eternal Spirit are marshalled to
defend you from your own attack. For you attack Them, being part of Them, and They must
save you, for They love Themselves.
The
holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven. It is
a picture, too, set in a frame. Yet if you accept this gift you will not see the frame at
all, because the gift can only be accepted through your willingness to focus all your
attention on the picture. The holy instant is a miniature of eternity. It is a picture of
timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus on the picture, you will realize that
it was only the frame that made you think it was a picture.
Without the frame, the picture is seen as what it represents. For as the whole thought
system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed
from eternity and set in time for you.
Two
gifts are offered you. Each is complete, and cannot be partially accepted. Each is a
picture of all that you can have, seen very differently. You cannot compare their value by
comparing a picture to a frame. It must be the pictures only that you compare, or the
comparison is wholly without meaning. Remember that it is the picture that is the gift.
And only on this basis are you really free to choose. Look at the pictures. Both of them.
One is a tiny picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous and
disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed and hung in light, lovely to look
upon for what it is.
You
who have tried so hard, and are still trying, to fit the better picture into the wrong
frame and so combine what cannot be combined, accept this and be glad: These pictures are
each framed perfectly for what they represent. One is framed to be out of focus and not
seen. The other is framed for perfect clarity. The picture of darkness and of death grows
less convincing as you search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless stone that
seems to shine from the frame in darkness is exposed to light, it becomes dull and
lifeless, and ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally you look upon the
picture itself, seeing at last that, unprotected by the frame, it has no meaning.
The
other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain eternity. There is no distraction
here. The picture of Heaven and eternity grows more convincing as you look at it. And now,
by real comparison, a transformation of both pictures can at last occur. And each is given
its rightful place when both are seen in relation to each other. The dark picture, brought
to light, is not perceived as fearful, but the fact that it is just a picture is brought
home at last. And what you see there you will recognize as what it is; a picture of what
you thought was real, and nothing more. For beyond this picture you will see nothing.
The
picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies
beyond the picture. As you look on this, you realize that it is not a picture, but a
reality. This is no figured representation of a thought system, but the Thought itself.
What it represents is there. The frame fades gently and God rises to your remembrance,
offering you the whole of creation in exchange for your little picture, wholly without
value and entirely deprived of meaning.
As God
ascends into His rightful place and you to yours, you will experience again the meaning of
relationship and know it to be true. Let us ascend in peace together to the Father, by
giving Him ascendance in our minds. We will gain everything by giving Him the power and
the glory, and keeping no illusions of where they are. They are in us, through His
ascendance. What He has given is His. It shines in every part of Him, as in the whole. The
whole reality of your relationship with Him lies in our relationship to one another. The
holy instant shines alike on all relationships, for in it they are
one. For here is only healing, already complete and perfect. For here is God, and where He
is only the perfect and complete can be.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 17