Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for freedom
lies in looking at it. It would be impossible not to know the meaning of
love, except for this. For the special love relationship, in which the
meaning of love is LOST, is undertaken solely to offset the hate, but
NOT to let it go. Your salvation will rise clearly before your open eyes
as you look on this. You cannot LIMIT hate. The special love
relationship will not offset it, but will merely drive it underground
and out of sight. It is essential to bring it INTO sight, and to make no
attempt to hide it. For it is the attempt to balance hate with love that
MAKES love meaningless to you. The extent of the split that lies in this
you do not realize. And UNTIL you do, the split will remain
unrecognized, and therefore unhealed.

The symbols of hate against the symbols of love play out a conflict
which does not exist. For symbols stand for something ELSE, and the
symbol of love is without meaning if love is everything. You will go
through this last undoing quite unharmed, and will at last emerge as
yourself. This is the last step in the readiness for God. Be not
unwilling now, you are too near, and you will cross the bridge in
perfect safety, translated quietly from war to peace. For the illusion
of love will NEVER satisfy, but its reality, which awaits you on the
other side, will give you everything.

The special love relationship is an attempt to limit the destructive
effects of hate by finding a haven in the storm of guilt. It makes no
attempt to rise ABOVE the storm, into the sunlight. On the contrary, it
emphasizes guilt OUTSIDE the haven by attempting to build barricades
against it, and keep within them. The special love relationship is not
perceived as a value in itself, but as a place of safety from which
hatred is split off, and kept apart. The special love partner is
acceptable only as long as he serves this purpose. Hatred can enter, and
indeed is welcome in SOME aspects of the relationship, but it is still
held together by the illusion of love. If the illusion goes, the
relationship is broken or becomes unsatisfying on the grounds of
disillusionment.

Love is NOT an illusion. It is a fact. Where disillusionment is
possible, there was not love but hate. For hate IS an illusion, and what
can change was NEVER love. It is certain that those who select
certain ones as partners in any aspect of living, and use them for any
purpose which they would not share with others, are trying to LIVE with
guilt rather than DIE of it. This is the choice they see. And love, to
them, is only an escape from death. They seek it desperately, but not in
the peace in which it would gladly come quietly TO them. And when they
find the fear of death is still upon them, the love relationship LOSES
the illusion that it is what it is not. For then the barricades against
it are broken, fear rushes in and hatred triumphs.

There are no triumphs of love. Only hate is concerned with the “triumph
of love” at all. The illusion of love CAN triumph over the illusion of
hate, but always at the price of making BOTH illusions. As long as the
illusion of hatred lasts, so long will love be an illusion to you. And
then the only choice which remains possible is which illusion you
prefer. There IS no conflict in the choice between truth and illusion.
Seen in THESE terms, no one would hesitate. But conflict enters the
instant the choice seems to be one between ILLUSIONS, for this choice
does not matter. Where one choice is as dangerous as the other, the
decision MUST be one of despair.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find ALL of
the barriers within yourself which 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.

Recognize this, 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 fear, and make it REAL in fear. In
fundamental violation of love’s condition, the special love relationship
would accomplish the impossible. How but in illusion COULD this be done?
It is essential that we look very closely at exactly what it is you
think you can do to solve the dilemma which seems very real to you, but
which does not exist. You have come very close to truth, and only this
stands between you and the bridge that leads you into it.

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 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 God has given, and what you are joined with Him in
giving.

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.

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 compatible 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.

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 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.

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.

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.