Special Relationships

"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." -- A Course in Miracles

I have always been fascinated with this passage from ACIM. And whenever I am in confusion or not at peace, I know that I am preoccupied with special relationships. What form do these take? People, of course, are the easy ones to recognize. The people we set up as special, whether family or friends or enemies, people we think will save us or fix us or hurt us or comfort us or even prosper us. Animals become special relationships when we use them to fill our imaginary empty places. Food becomes a special relationship when we think it will fix us or save us or comfort us or even hurt us. Books and movies become special relationships when we use them to escape or to find the answers and fix us. Money and financial institutions and our financial agreements with people and creditors are easy to see as the special relationships that they are. Pretty much anyone or anything becomes a special relationship when we see it as separate and want something from it and so become attached to it or fear it. And isn't that pretty much the story of living as we have known it?

As ACIM points out, the whole purpose to life as we have lived it thus far is to preoccupy our minds so completely that we will not hear the constant call of Truth within our own minds and hearts. It also reassures us that we have made very real relationships that we don't recognize because we discount them and focus on the externally based relationships that seem more in keeping with the world around us. And we defend these relationships and the thought system they protect with our very lives, literally.

Who and what are our real relationships? Love leads the way... not Love as the ego would recognize it with its separate bodies and special roles and uses. Divine Love illuminates our real relationships wherever there is awakening to our Oneness. Wherever there is a willingness to question and allow. Wherever there is peace rather than compulsion. Wherever there is an opening of awareness that includes everyone and everything, not just 'special' aspects.... the awareness of Self. Divine Love IS the only real relationship, and it is everywhere. And as we let this Love lead the way, we are no longer confused by the words or appearances of the self-created special relationships that we have surrounded ourselves with. For as ACIM points out, they are not fearful or wrong. They are simply meaningless and not true.

"You cannot be faithful to two masters who ask conflicting things of you. What you use in fantasy you deny to truth... and when you maintain that there must be an order of difficulty in miracles, all you mean is that there are some things you would withhold from truth." -- A Course in Miracles