Where no reality has entered, there is nothing to intrude upon the dream of happiness. Yet consider what this means; the MORE reality that enters into the unholy relationship, the LESS SATISFYING it becomes.

The better you get to know the person you were head over heals in love with, the less satisfying it becomes because reality enters the picture.  And I’m saying, the ego characteristics of your partner become displayed more completely than when you first met and were on your “good behavior.”  Okay?

So . . .

. . . the MORE reality that enters into the unholy relationship, the LESS SATISFYING it becomes.  And the more the FANTASIES can encompass, the GREATER the satisfaction seems to be.

Why harp on this?  Why keep talking this way?

Because you all fool yourselves into thinking that the way you have relationships where the Father’s Perspective isn’t entering into the picture at all, is normal.  That it is the human condition, that you must do the best you can with it and there is no alternative.  And you see, not only is that belief not true, it’s detrimental—it’s destructive.  Because, when you adopt that stance, you will not allow for an “ah-ha” to occur, you are completely blocked against the discovery, the remembering that there was a point at which you did have complete and total union with everything and you knew who you Were—the  Son or Daughter of God in Whom He had embodied all that He is.  And you block by this conviction, any possibility of your [snaps fingers] remembering that and Waking up out of the dream of specialness, out of the dream of ignorance, out of the dream of living in an orphanage making something wonderful out of yourself . . . the poor thing that you are.

You’ve got to realize the dullness of this—the meaninglessness of it so that you’re willing to stop in your tracks and refrain from further commitment to this habit of thought, and do the two-step.  It’s that simple.

Where no reality has entered, there is nothing to intrude upon the dream of happiness. Yet consider what this means; . .

. . . this is the point again . . .

. . . the MORE reality that enters into the unholy relationship, the LESS SATISFYING it . . .

. . . the unholy relationship . . .

. . . becomes.  And the more the FANTASIES can encompass, the GREATER the satisfaction seems to be.

The "ideal" of the unholy relationship thus becomes one in which the reality of the other does not enter AT ALL to "spoil" the dream. And the less the other REALLY brings to it, the "better" it becomes.

Well, I’m upsetting the apple cart.  I’m bringing reality into my relationships with you.  And it makes you uncomfortable because I help you keep your attention fixed where it needs to be so that you don’t fool yourselves, and so that you find yourself uncomfortable enough to make commitment to a new task—a new direction in which to be.

Thus, the attempt at union becomes a way of excluding even the one with whom the union was sought.

You see?  You meet someone.  There’s a real entity there.  There’s a Son or Daughter of God.  You just see a human being because you, yourself, have forgotten you’re the Son or Daughter of God.  And you begin to relate to this human being as a human being.   You see?  Already everything is a fabrication.  Everything is false.  Nothing true can come of it. 

Then you learn to negotiate patterns of behavior with each other that help you not bring too much individuality into the relationship because that will require too much spontaneous unrehearsed, unpremeditated response.  And you will lose the security of the fantasy.

So you end up being in relationship with someone without being in relationship to them.  You are relating to your picture of them.  And actually, I would say this:  The picture you have of yourself is what you activate in order to relate to the picture you have of them.  And they’re doing the same thing in return.

This is very detrimental.  Not because it makes life difficult when everybody’s trying to operate according to fantasy, but because engaging in it at all keeps you from Waking up, keeps you from doing the two-step, keeps you from saying, “In spite of my perception of myself and my perception of them, and in spite of their perception of themselves and their perception of me, Father what is the truth here?”  You see?  That simply won’t happen as along as you’re devoted to the special or unholy relationship.

Thus, the attempt at union becomes a way of excluding even the one with whom the union was sought. For it was formed to get him OUT of it, and join with fantasies in uninterrupted "bliss."

Wow. 

How can the Holy Spirit bring His interpretation of the body as a means of communication into relationships whose only purpose is SEPARATION from reality?

Sounds like a difficult problem for the Holy Spirit.  But the answer is so utterly simple because it comes out of left-field.  It’s not a response to context of the question.

How can the Holy Spirit bring His interpretation of the body as a means of communication into relationships whose only purpose is SEPARATION from reality?

Here it is:

What forgiveness IS enables Him to do so.

[Repeats] What forgiveness IS enables Him to do so.

And what did we find forgiveness was?  Forgiveness is when you abandon all of the unloving things and thoughts that you engaged in.  Selective memory is used . . . and all that’s left is that which was loving that you did and that which was loving that was done unto you.

That new perspective, which has been ever present with you, but has been hidden like the wheat is hidden by the tares, that is all there to be seen and blessed by if selective memory is used.  And isn’t the two-step, isn’t the practice of the holy instant the practice of abandoning all that wasn’t loving, all that wasn’t true?  It is, because you’re saying, “Aside from what I think, Father, . .” you see, you’re going to another source, “Father, what is the truth here?  What is the Love here?  Holy Spirit, reveal to me what I covered up by creating perceptions of my own . . . definitions and meanings of my own that had nothing to do with the thing I was applying the definitions to.”

If ALL but loving thoughts has been forgotten, what remains IS eternal. And the transformed past . . .

. . . in other words, the past that suddenly sits there clearly without all of the unloving and unlovely things that had been entertained before, in that transformed experience the . . .

. . . past is made like the PRESENT.

Let me read it again:

If ALL but loving thoughts has been forgotten, what remains IS eternal. And the transformed past is made like the PRESENT. No longer does the past conflict with NOW.

Now you might say, “Well, wait a minute, the now is conflicted.  How can the past that’s been cleaned up not conflict with now?”  Well, because now…now… now…now…now…now…now is at each instant God expressing Himself totally as the Movement of Creation and it is unconflicted.  It is flawless right now… now…now…now…now.  You see?  You drag the conflicts from the past and apply it to the now…now…now…now…now and immediately cover up what was perfectly new now…now…now.

[And] the transformed past is made like the PRESENT. No longer does the past conflict with NOW. THIS continuity EXTENDS the present by increasing its reality and its VALUE in your perception of it.

In other words, when there’s nothing present in your past because you’ve used selective memory to separate the tares from the wheat, the Real from the unreal, what seemed like a troubled and conflicted past becomes a flawlessly perfect past that’s exactly like the flawlessly perfect present.  And in that undistorted experience of unity an expansion occurs so that now is no longer just a local experience for you—your street, your community, your city, your state, your county, your world.  You see?  And your conscious experience of being, takes in more and more and more of the infinite Creation that the infinite God is Being at every moment—your conscious awareness of things becomes infinite as an actual experience.

THIS continuity EXTENDS the present by increasing its reality and its VALUE in your perception of it. In these loving thoughts . . .

. . . the ones that remain because the unloving thoughts have been selected out by selective memory.

In these loving thoughts is the spark of beauty hidden in the ugliness of the unholy relationship in which the hatred is remembered, yet THERE to come alive as the relationship is given to Him Who gives it life and beauty.

. . . meaning the Holy Spirit.  Now that’s a little bit difficult to understand.

In these loving thoughts . . .

. . . that remain after selective memory.

In these loving thoughts is the spark of beauty . . .

. . . and I’m going to add the words . . .

[which was] hidden in the ugliness of the unholy relationship in which the hatred is remembered, . .

. . . in other words, before it was selected out by selective memory . . .

. . . in which the hatred is remembered, yet . . .

. . . it . . .

. . . the spark of beauty . . .

. . . is . . .

. . . yet THERE to come alive as the relationship is given to Him Who gives it life and beauty.

Everything Real, everything true, every little bit of love that you have expressed even while you were asleep and dreaming a dream of humanhood, is eternal and has remained present for what it was—for what it is—right in the ugliness of the unholy relationships.  It has been there to be uncovered and brought to life, illuminated so that it could illuminate you.  That’s what it means. 

That is why Atonement centers on the past, which is the SOURCE of separation, and where it must be undone. For separation must be corrected where it was MADE.

Again, let’s keep it simple:  Where was the separation made?  It was made in the decision on your part where you said, “Father, I would rather see it my way.” 

It’s not that it was really made in the past, it was made in a decision.  A decision that can be unmade and the unmaking of it has nothing to do with time—past, present or future.  It’s important to understand.

The ego seeks to "resolve" its problems, not at their source, but where they were NOT made.

You see?  You try to solve your problems with your fellowman who’s creating a difficult situation for you.  But that’s not the source of the problem.  The source of the problem is that you, in your present relationship with your Brother, are not looking at your Brother after having first done the two-step.  You’re engaging with your Brother without first having said, “Father, what is the truth here about me and my Brother?  What is the truth about what our relationship is?  I think that we’re just two human beings, two organisms.  But I hear that we’re really the Sons of God—that God is our Father, not our human parents and not a sperm and an egg germinating.  I hear that.  What’s the truth?  How will things look if I say okay to the perspective that I’m told is mine because You placed it in me?  But I won’t experience it until somehow I say, “Okay, Father, I’ll let You be my Father and I won’t claim to be an independent entity.  I won’t even claim that You made me and gave me intelligence to be on my own.”

The ego seeks to "resolve" its problems, not at their source, but where they were NOT made. And thus it seeks to guarantee there WILL be no solution.

That’s where the detrimental, destructive aspects of the special relationship are.

. . . it seeks to guarantee there WILL be no solution. The Holy Spirit . . .

. . . that which is nothing more than your right Mind . . .

 . . . wills only to make His resolutions complete and perfect, and so He seeks and FINDS the source of problems where it is, and there undoes it.

The Holy Spirit says to you, as I am saying to you, “Stop!  Do the two-step, engage in the holy instant.”  You see?  The Holy Spirit directs you to where the source of the problem lies.  Apparently it lies in a decision you made some time ago, apparently in the past.  But you’re not going to go back to the past to correct it, because the past—a date in time and space—is not where the mistake was made.  It was made in a decision.  And so the Holy Spirit directs you there by saying, “Engage in the holy instant in every moment . . . ask, Father, what is the truth here?  Father, what is the truth here?  Father, what is the truth about me and this one I’m in relationship with, because that truth is the one I want to base my actions upon.”  You see?

And with each step in His . . .

. . . the Holy Spirit's . . .

. . . undoing is the SEPARATION more and more undone, and union brought closer. He is not at all confused by any "reasons" for separation.

You see?  He’s very clear about what’s needed and he doesn’t care about the reasons that might have been given.  “Well, it was a bad day and I didn’t have time to think clearly and so I made a mistake and then, you know, what happened, happened.”  Doesn’t matter.  None of those things matter.  What matters is, right now, are you going to say, “Father, what is the truth here?”

ALL He . . .

. . . the Holy Spirit . . .

. . .  perceives in separation is . . .

. . . what?  Something so utterly simple . . . 

. . . that it must be UNDONE.

That’s all!  You don’t have to unjustify it.  You don’t have to go through all the reasons.  You don’t have to do all this stuff that keeps things in nebulous vagueness.

Listen to this (nothing vague or nebulous):

ALL He perceives in separation is that it must be UNDONE.

That’s all!

Let Him uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships, and show it to you. Its loveliness will so attract you that you will be unwilling ever to lose the sight of it again.

Well, the actual experiential fact of it is, that you will recognize its value.  But your old habits will still seem valuable to you and you’re not likely to make commitment initially to the beauty of the love that the Holy Spirit has uncovered, that allows for your release from the orphanage.  But I will tell you this:  After the first experience you have, you will have others and you will never be able to be completely at ease and comfortable in your ignorance again.  And as a result, the ignorance that had not bothered you for, . . you would say forever . . . will begin to be felt as an unsettled, disruptive undercurrent that will increase in strength so that you truly arrive at a point where you’re unwilling to ever lose the sight of it again.

Its loveliness will so attract you that you will be unwilling ever to lose the sight of it again.

It will happen.  You can facilitate its happening with less stress by consciously engaging in the holy instant.  You now have an idea.  And you can practice it.  And you will not be at the beck and call of your emotions and your long-standing habits of self-centeredness. 

And you will let it transform the relationship so you can see it more and more. For you will WANT it more and more, and become increasingly unwilling to let it be hidden from you.

Mind you, you’re liable to experience this in a mirror image, meaning that you are more likely to feel uncomfortable where before you had always felt comfortable.  And that discomfort will increase causing you to willingly say, “Father, what is the truth here?  Father, I really want to know what the truth is here.” 

And you will learn to seek for, and ESTABLISH, conditions in which this beauty can be seen.

The simple fact is you will begin to appear to be an individual with resolve—not wimpy, not just going with the flow.  You will begin to become demanding of the experience of God in your relationships with every thing, as a holy Son of God relating to—or Daughter of God relating to—holy Sons or Daughters of God or as a holy Son or Daughter of God relating to all of Creation.

All this you will do gladly, if you but let Him hold the spark before you,  . .

[Repeats] . . . if you but let Him hold the spark before you,  . .

. . . “Holy Spirit, what is the truth here?”  That’s what you’re asking for.  You’re asking for the Holy Spirit or God to hold the spark in front of you.  “What is the truth here?”  You don’t want to see darkness, a void.  That’s what the two-step is about, that’s what the holy instant is about.

. . . let Him hold the spark before you, to light your way and make it clear to you. God's Son is one.

Not one who also is a shadow image held by you and others around you. 

God's Son is one.

Indivisible.  No misperceptions, no definitions, no meanings separate and apart from the perfect one:  The Son of God that God is expressing Himself as.

Whom God has joined as one, the ego CANNOT break apart.

When you read sentences like that, you know that it means that it therefore, it never has happened.

Whom God has joined as one, the ego CANNOT break apart.

And therefore, it has never been broken apart, no matter how broken you seem to be experiencing yourself.  You’ve got to become definite.  You’ve got to establish the conditions in which the beauty can be seen.  You see?

The spark of holiness MUST be safe, however hidden it may be, in every relationship.

Listen to that.  This is because of who you really Are—the Son or Daughter of God.

The spark of holiness MUST be safe, however hidden it may be, in every relationship.

Because no matter what kind of shadow image is defining you in your mind, you’ve never stopped being the Son or Daughter of God, the holy one. 

And so: 

The spark of holiness . . .

. . . has never been altered, it . . .

MUST be safe, however hidden it may be, in every relationship. For the Creator of the one relationship has left no part of it without Himself.

You see?  The Father did not create you and then abandon you to be on your own.  Your holiness in this instant is derived from the Presence of the Movement of God in this moment right there where you are.  That’s the truth about you.  That’s the truth about your fellowman.  And that’s the truth you want to have embellished and broadened as your conscious experience.  That experience is the reason for the practice of the holy instant.

Now I’m going to end here.  And as you consider during the coming week what we’ve discussed, I want you to look for the spark . . . the spark of love that is present in everything you do and is present in everything everyone else does, because anything that any of you are doing is an act of a holy Son or Daughter of God.  That fact hasn’t changed.

Don’t become too somber about the things we’re discussing.  But be willing to be serious about them, so that their serious consideration might move you to a practical willingness to engage in the holy instant . . . to move into that place where God’s laws prevail, where your holiness and your Brother’s or Sister’s holiness is secure, unviolated, available to be experienced as the transforming of your mind and the contributive factor to the transforming of your Brothers’ or Sisters’ minds.

I love you very much.  Okay.

.