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.

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 for
keeping you from Heaven. It does not APPEAR to be a 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 considers it bizarre to love and hate together, and even those
who believe that hate is sin merely feel guilty, and do not correct it.

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 known, love is the same as UNION.
Here, where the illusion of love is accepted in love’s place, love is
perceived as separation and EXCLUSION.

It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for special
love from God, that the ego’s hatred triumphs. For the 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.

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.

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 of 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 but do not find”?

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 “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 of nothing else, the illusion
of Heaven is nothing more than an “attractive” form of fear, in which
the guilt is buried deep, and rises in the form of “love.”

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.”

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.

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 from hell.

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 raising 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 its
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.

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.

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.

The core of the separation delusion lies simply in the FANTASY of
destruction of love’s meaning. And unless love’s meaning is RESTORED to
you, you cannot know yourself who SHARE its meaning. Separation is only
the decision NOT to know yourself. Its whole thought system is a
carefully contrived learning experience, designed to lead AWAY from
truth and into fantasy. Yet for every learning that would hurt you, God
offers you correction and complete escape from ALL its consequences. The
decision whether or not to listen to this course and follow it is but
the choice between truth and illusion. For here is truth, SEPARATED from
illusion, and not confused with it at all.

How simple does this choice become when it is perceived as only what it
is. For ONLY fantasies made confusion in choosing possible, and they are
totally unreal. This year is thus the time to make the easiest decision
that ever confronted you, and also the ONLY one. You will cross the
bridge into reality simply because you will recognize that God is on the
other side and nothing AT ALL is here. It is impossible NOT to make the
natural decision as this is realized.