Relationships, the Special Kind

God established His relationship with you TO MAKE YOU HAPPY and nothing YOU do which 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 fulfills this function NOT, CANNOT BE REAL.

In this world, it is impossible to create. Yet it IS possible to make happy.

We have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not DEPRIVE you of your special relationships, but would TRANSFORM them. And by that, all that is meant 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 that YOU have made IS a substitute for God’s Will and glorifies yours instead of His, BECAUSE OF THE DELUSION THEY ARE DIFFERENT.

You have VERY REAL relationships, even in this world, which you do not recognize, simply because you have raised their SUBSTITUTES to such predominance that when truth calls to you, as it does constantly, YOU ANSWER WITH A SUBSTITUTE.

The Holy Spirit knows NO-ONE IS SPECIAL. But He also perceives that you have MADE special relationships, which He would purify and NOT let YOU destroy.

You can place ANY relationship under His care and be sure that it will NOT result in pain, if you offer Him your willingness TO HAVE IT SERVE NO NEED BUT HIS.

Every special relationship which you have ever undertaken has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your minds 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 that 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’s use of relationships is so fragmented, that it frequently goes even further; one PART of one aspect suits its purposes, while it prefers DIFFERENT parts of another aspect.

Thus does it ASSEMBLE reality to its own capricious liking, offering for YOUR seeking, a picture whose likeness DOES NOT EXIST. For there is nothing in Heaven OR earth that it resembles and so, however much you seek for its reality, you CANNOT find it, because it is NOT real.

Everyone on earth has formed special relationships and, although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here.

In the holy instant, no-one is special, for your PERSONAL needs INTRUDE on no-one, to MAKE them different.

Without the values from the past you WOULD see them all the same and LIKE YOURSELF. Nor would you see ANY separation between yourself and them.

Any relationship which you would SUBSTITUTE FOR ANOTHER has not been offered to the Holy Spirit for His use.

There IS no substitute for love.

If you would attempt to substitute ONE aspect of love for ANOTHER, you have placed LESS value on one and MORE on another.

You have not only SEPARATED them, but have also JUDGED AGAINST BOTH. Yet you had judged against yourself FIRST, or you would never have imagined that you needed them, AS THEY WERE NOT.

Unless you had seen yourself as WITHOUT love, you COULD not have judged them to be LIKE you, in lack. (without love)

All special relationships have sin as their goal. For they are BARGAINS with reality toward which the seeming union is adjusted.

Forget not this; to bargain is to set a limit and any brother with whom you have a limited relationship, YOU HATE.

You may attempt to KEEP the bargain in the name of fairness, sometimes demanding payment of your self, perhaps more often of the other.

In this “fairness,” you attempt to ease the guilt that comes from the accepted PURPOSE of the relationship. And that is why the Holy Spirit must change its purpose, to make it useful unto HIM and harmless unto YOU.

If you ACCEPT this change, you have accepted the IDEA of making room for truth.

The SOURCE of sin is gone. You may IMAGINE that you still experience its effects, but it is NOT your purpose and you no longer WANT it.

No-one allows a purpose to be REPLACED while he DESIRES it. For nothing is so cherished and protected, as is a goal the mind accepts. This it will follow grimly or happily, but ALWAYS with faith and with the persistence that faith INEVITABLY brings.

The power of faith is NEVER recognized if it is placed in sin. But it is ALWAYS recognized if it is placed in love.

Because of guilt, ALL special relationships have some elements of fear in them. And this is why they shift and change so frequently. They are NOT based on changeless love alone. And love, where fear has entered, CANNOT be depended on, because it is NOT perfect.

All the guilt in it arises from YOUR use of it. All the love, from His, the Holy Spirit. Do not then, be AFRAID to let your IMAGINED need, which would DESTROY the relationship, go. Your ONLY need IS the Holy Spirit.

However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM.

To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son and thus to ATTACK REALITY.

You cannot love PARTS of reality and understand what love MEANS.

If you would love UNlike to God, Who KNOWS no special love, how CAN you understand it?

To believe that SPECIAL relationships, with SPECIAL love can offer you salvation, IS the belief that separation, is salvation. For it is the COMPLETE EQUALITY of the Atonement in which salvation lies.

How can YOU decide that special aspects of the Sonship CAN GIVE YOU MORE THAN OTHERS? The past HAS taught you this. But the holy instant teaches you IT IS NOT SO.

In the holy instant, you see in each relationship what it WILL be when you perceive ONLY the present.

God knows you NOW. He remembers NOTHING having ALWAYS known you exactly as He knows you now.

The holy instant PARALLELS His knowing by bringing ALL perception OUT of the past, thus removing the frame of reference you have built by which to JUDGE your brothers.

Once this is gone, the Holy Spirit substitutes His frame of reference FOR it. His frame of reference is simply God.

The Holy Spirit’s timelessness lies simply here. For in the holy instant, FREE of the past, you see that LOVE IS IN YOu and you HAVE no need to look WITHOUT and snatch it guiltily from where you THOUGHT it was.

ALL your relationships are blessed in the holy instant, BECAUSE THE BLESSING IS NOT LIMITED.

In the holy instant, the Sonship gains AS ONE. And UNITED in your blessing, it BECOMES one TO YOU.

The meaning of love is the meaning God GAVE to it.

Give to it ANY meaning APART from His and it is IMPOSSIBLE to understand it.

Every brother God loves as He loves you; neither less nor more. HE NEEDS THEM ALL EQUALLY, and so do YOU.

In time, you have been told to offer miracles as Christ directs, and let the Holy Spirit bring to you those who are seeking you.

But in the holy instant, you unite DIRECTLY with God and ALL your brothers join in Christ.

Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares, as God shares His Self with Christ.

Hear him gladly and learn of Him that you have need of no special relationships at all.

You but seek in them what you have THROWN AWAY. And through THEM, you will never learn the value of what you have cast aside, but what you still desire with all your hearts.

We once said that the first change, before dreams disappear, is that your dreams of fear are changed to HAPPY dreams.

That is what the Holy Spirit does in your special relationship. He does NOT destroy it, nor snatch it away from you. But He does use it differently, as a help to make HIS purpose REAL to you.

Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom.

It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery. As its UNholiness kept it as a thing apart, its HOLINESS will become an offering to everyone.

Your special relationship will be a means for UNDOING guilt in everyone blessed through your holy relationship. It will be a happy dream and one which you will SHARE with all who come within your sight. Through it, the blessing that the Holy Spirit has laid upon it will be EXTENDED.

Think not that He has forgotten anyone in the purpose He has given you. And think not that He has forgotten YOU to whom He GAVE this gift.

He uses everyone who calls on Him as means for the salvation of everyone. He will waken everyone through you who offered your relationship to Him.

If you but recognized His gratitude! Or mine through His! For we are joined as one in purpose, being of one mind with Him.

Let not the dream take hold to close your eyes.

It is not strange that dreams can make a world that is unreal. The WISH to make it IS incredible.

Your relationship has become one in which the wish has been REMOVED, because its purpose has been changed from one of dreams to one of truth.

You are not sure of this, because you think it may be THIS, that is the dream. You are so used to choosing between dreams, you do not see that you have made at last, the choice between the truth, and ALL ILLUSIONS.

Yet Heaven IS sure. THIS IS NO DREAM. Its coming means that you have chosen truth and it has come, because you have been willing to let your special relationship meet its conditions.

In your relationship, the Holy Spirit has gently laid the real world; the world of happy dreams from which awaking is so easy and so natural.

For, as your sleeping and your waking dreams represent the same wishes in YOUR mind, so do the real world and the truth of Heaven join in the Will of God.

The dream of waking is easily transferred to its reality. For this dream comes from your will, JOINED with the Will of God. And what THIS will would HAVE accomplished has never, NOT been done.