u/Salvationsway

Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not TRUE. They but seem to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to recognize them for what they are, and you WILL fail to do this to the extent to which you WANT them to be true. And to the same extent you are DENYING truth, and so are making yourself unable to make the simple choice between truth and illusion; God and fantasy. Remember this, and you will have no difficulty in perceiving the decision as just what it IS, and nothing more.

No rituals that you have set up, in which the dance of death delights you, can bring death to the eternal. Nor can your chosen substitute for the Wholeness of God have any influence at all upon It. See in the special relationship nothing more than a meaningless attempt to raise other gods before Him, and by worshipping them, to obscure THEIR tininess and His GREATNESS. In the name of your completion, you do not WANT this. For every idol which you raise to place before Him stands before YOU, in place of what you ARE. 

Whenever any form of special relationship tempts you to seek for love in ritual, remember love is CONTENT, and not form of ANY kind. The special relationship is a RITUAL of form, aimed at the rising of the form to take the place of God at the EXPENSE of content. There IS no meaning in the form, and there will never be. The special relationship must be recognized for what it is; a senseless ritual, in which strength is extracted from the death of God, and invested in His killer as the sign that form has triumphed over content, and love has lost it meaning. Would you WANT this to be possible, even apart from its evident impossibility? For if it WERE possible, you would have made YOURSELF helpless. God is not angry. He merely could not let this happen. You CANNOT change His Mind.

How can you grant unlimited power to what you think you have attacked? So fearful has the truth become to you that UNLESS it is weak and little, you would not dare to look upon it. You think it safer to endow the little self which you have made with power you WRESTED from truth, triumphing over it and leaving it helpless. See how EXACTLY is this ritual enacted in the special relationship. An altar is erected in between two separate people on which each seeks to kill his self, and on his body raise another self which takes its power from his death. Over and over and over this ritual is enacted. And it is NEVER completed, nor ever WILL be completed. For the ritual of completion CANNOT complete, and life arises not from death, nor Heaven for hell.

If you perceived the special relationship as a triumph over God, would you WANT it? Let us not think of its fearful nature, nor of the guilt it must entail, nor of the sadness and the loneliness. For these are only attributes of the whole religion of the separation, and of the total context in which it is thought to occur. The central theme in its litany to sacrifice is that God must die so YOU can live. And it is this theme which is acted out in the special relationship. Through the death of YOUR self, you think you can attack another self, and snatch it from the other to replace the self which you despise. And you despise it because you do not think it offers the specialness which you demand. And HATING it, you have made it little and unworthy because you are AFRAID of it.

The appeal of hell lies only in the terrible attraction of guilt, which the ego holds out to those who place their faith in littleness. 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. And 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.”

The “better” self the ego seeks is always one that is MORE special. And whoever seems to possess a special self is “loved” for what can be taken FROM him. Where both partners see this special self in each other, the ego sees “a union made in Heaven.” For neither one will recognize that he has asked for hell, and so he will not interfere with the ego’s illusion of Heaven, which it offered him to INTERFERE with Heaven. Yet if all illusions are of fear, and they CAN be nothing else, the illusion of Heaven is nothing more than and “attractive” form of fear, in which the guilt is buried deep, and rises in the form of “love.”

Most curious of all is the concept of the self which the ego fosters in the special relationship. This “self” seeks the relationship to make itself complete. Yet when it FINDS the special relationship in which it thinks it can accomplish this, it gives itself AWAY, and tries to “trade” itself for the self of another. This is not union, for there is no increase and no extension. Each partner tries to sacrifice the self he does not want for one he thinks he would prefer. And he feels guilty for the “sin” of taking, and of giving nothing of value in return. For how much value CAN he place upon a self that he would give away to get a better one?

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 on both, and to the inability to perceive either one 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 and do not find?”

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 IT. This IS its idea of Heaven. From this it follows that union, which is a condition in which the ego CANNOT interfere, MUST be hell.

It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for special love from God, that the ego’s hatred triumphs. For special relationship is the RENUNCIATION of the love of God, and the attempt to secure for the self the specialness which He denied. It is essential to the preservation of the ego that you believe this specialness is not hell, but Heaven. For the ego would never have you see that separation can ONLY be loss, being the one condition in which Heaven CANNOT be.

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, being MADE to be its opposite, and everything here takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true. In Heaven, where the meaning of love is know, love it the same as UNION. Here, where the illusion of love is accepted in love’s place, love is. Perceived as separation and EXCLUSION.

Very simply, the attempt to make guilty is ALWAYS directed against God. For the ego would have you see Him, and Him ALONE. As guilty, leaving the Sonship open to attack, and unprotected from it. The special love relationship is the ego’s chief weapon, but if you consider HOW you value it and WHY, you will realize what it must be. The special love relationship is the ego’s most boasted gift, and one which has the most appeal to those unwilling to relinquish guilt. The “dynamics” of the ego are clearest here, for counting on the attraction of this offering, the fantasies which center around it are often quite open. Here they are usually judged to be acceptable, and even natural. No one consider it bizarre to love and hate together, and even those who believe that hate is sin merely feel guilty, and do not correct it.

In looking at the special relationship, it is necessary first to realize that it involves a great amount of pain. Anxiety, despair, guilt and attack all enter into it, broken into by periods in which they SEEM to be gone. All these must be understood for what they are. Whatever form they take, they are always an attack on the self to make the OTHER guilty. We have spoken of this before, but there are some aspects of what is really being attempted that we have not touched upon.

If special relationships of any kind would hinder God’s completion, CAN they have value to you? What would interfere with God MUST interfere with you. Only in time does interference in God’s completion seem to be possible. The bridge that He would carry you across lifts you from time into eternity. Waken from time, and answer fearlessly the call of Him 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 God. At Its center, and ONLY there, you are safe forever, because you are COMPLETE forever. There is no veil the Love of God in us together cannot lift. The way to truth is open. Follow it with me.

Your Father can no more forget the truth in you than you can fail to remember it. The Holy Spirit is the bridge to Him, made from your willingness to unite with Him, and created by His joy in union with you. The journey that seemed to be endless is almost complete, for what IS endless is very near. You have almost recognized it. Turn with me firmly away from all illusions NOW, and let nothing stand in the way of truth. We will take the last foolish journey AWAY from truth together, and then together we go straight to God, in joyous answer to His call for His completion.

Would you not go THROUGH fear to love? For such the journey seems to be. Love calls, but hate would have you stay. Hear not the call of hate, and see no fantasies. See in the call of hate, and in every fantasy that rises to delay you, but the call for help which rises ceaselessly from you to your Creator. Would He not answer you whose completion is His? He loves you, wholly without illusion, as you must love. For love IS wholly without illusion, and therefore wholly without fear. Whom God remembers MUST be whole. And God has never forgotten what makes HIM whole. In your completion lies the memory of His Wholeness, and His gratitude to you for His completion. In His link with you he lie both His inability to forget, and your ability to remember. In Him are joined your willingness to love, and all the Love of God, Who forgot you not.

The bridge that leads to union in yourself MUST lead to knowledge, for it was built with God beside you, and will lead you straight to Him, where your completion rests, wholly comparable with His. Every illusion which you accept into your mind by judging it to be attainable removes your own sense of completion, and thus denies the Wholeness of your Father. 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 which 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.

Across the bridge is your completion, for you will be wholly in God, willing for nothing special, but only to be wholly like unto Him, completing Him by YOUR completion. Fear not to cross to the abode of peace and perfect holiness. Only there is the completion of God and of His Son established forever. Seek not for this in the bleak world of illusion, where nothing is certain, and where everything fails to satisfy In the Name of God, be wholly willing to abandon ALL illusions. In any relationship in which you are wholly willing to accept completion, and ONLY this, there is God completed, and His Son with Him.

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 brothers with gratitude, because your relationships were created in union WITH them, without which you could never BE complete. No specialness can offer you what God has given, and what you are joined with Him in giving.