Now we’ve also been talking about the two pictures.  And although one of them has a very ornate frame, which gets all of your attention, we’ve talked about the necessity of bringing your attention to the pictures ignoring the frame.  And the fact that fundamentally, the same thing is in each picture:  A relationship—an unholy relationship and (we haven’t used the words in recent weeks) a holy relationship in the other.

As we go along, you find yourself invited like further and further into something you didn’t know you were going to be encountering.  A Course In Miracles is not a literary work to be read like other books.  It is an expression of ideas, the intent of which are to cause movement in you and move you from one perspective of yourself and the world into another.  In other words, to promote actual change.

Recently you may have felt as though I have been pressing for a lot more change than ever before.  And you might be surprised at it.  But it is important.  And although change isn’t always fun, it’s always essential.  And facing that with courage is where you find yourselves now.  That is where we are in the process and it’s necessary not to cringe or at least not withdraw in the face of the call for change—the call for growth that we find ourselves at. 

It’s very important not to misunderstand what’s happening and assume that something must be wrong because there’s a certain amount of discomfort associated with where we are in the process.

Now, this new section is entitled:

THE HEALED RELATIONSHIP¹

Well, we’ve been talking for weeks now about doing the two-step, haven’t we?  About entering into the holy instant because the holy instant, you could say, is the stepping-stone out of the human condition.  It’s the stepping-stone out of sin, sickness and death—suffering.  It’s the stepping-stone into that place where God’s laws prevail.  And as a result, you are never confronted with sin, disease or death, lack, fear, any of these things.  You see?

Now, always I’ve suggested that in the practice of the two-step, you become still, you stop your incessant thinking and in the quietness you say, “Father, what is the truth here?”  Now think about it.  When you say, “Father what is the truth here?” you’re obviously meaning what is the truth relative to this situation, what is the truth relative to what’s happening with these things, what’s the truth relative to what these things seem to be doing?  You see?  The question always has to do with something you’re in relationship with.

By now it should be obvious to you that the subject, the focal  point  of  A Course In  Miracles, is relationships. 

Now we’ve described at length what an unholy relationship is, what its characteristics are, what its uses are, how you use it, and on and on.  We haven’t talked a lot about a holy relationship.  But you could imagine that if you’re going to shift from an unholy relationship to a holy relationship, it’s going to involve your having said, “Father, what is the truth here about this relationship?”  And you might imagine that the answer will be an intellectual explanation so that you might understand what the truth is here about this relationship.

And I’m here to tell you tonight that the truth about a relationship is not a head-trip.  The truth about relationship is involvement.  The truth about relationship is your heart, your nature as Love Itself, which is placed in you by the Father because you are His Self expressed and He is Love.  And this Love that you Are must come into play.  It must find expression in you as feeling, as caring, as affection, as thoughtfulness . . . you see?. . . something far more than an intellectual understanding. 

“Oh-h, well you’ve been studying the Course and I’m studying the Course—we’re prime candidates for engaging in a holy relationship . . .”

Well, you could approach it that way and you could approach it as though you were going to bring into play all the things that the two you think a holy relationship is.  Head-trip . . . head-trip . . . head-trip . . . no connection . . . no connection.  An interaction based upon head-trip . . . head-trip . . . head-trip times two because both of you are doing head-trip . . . head-trip . . . head-trip.  You see?

Now what have we been talking about for quite awhile now?  We’ve been talking about the two-step and the holy instant.  We’ve been talking about not interacting first with the thing you’re in relationship with, but going within first and connecting with the Father or connecting with the Holy Spirit.  Being still, stopping your thinking, enquiring, “What is the Father’s Perspective now regarding this?”

Now while you’re doing this, you’ve set aside your interactions.  You’ve set aside whatever allegiances you have with this thing you’re in relationship with because you don’t want your preoccupations or their preoccupations to get in the way of what the answer will be through your quiet, genuine inquiry: “Father, Holy Spirit, what is the truth here?” 

The Holy Spirit will respond and communicate with you, I will say, in the form of communion—an inner definite communication that is more than just words but is a communication of feeling and meaning that does something to your mind.  It clears out the fog.  It clears out the clutter.  It simplifies, you might say, the viewing area—the area of consciousness—and reveals to you God’s truth relative to whatever you’ve asked about.

And this changes you.  Important.

The realization that occurs in you causes you to behave in a different manner than the way you behaved without engaging in the two-step or the holy instant.  Now in your relationship with another, what comes out of your mouth is characteristic of a holy relationship.  It’s not a planned behavior, it’s not a patterned or habitual behavior.  It’s a behavior in the moment that arises out of fresh, clear, conscious awareness of what you’re involved in, what you’re involved with, with a perspective far beyond your puny little private intellectual capacities.

Now there’s something else.  A holy relationship isn’t a nice substitute or alternative to an unholy relationship. 

“Oh-h, we’ve been having an unholy relationship, let’s have a holy relationship!”

No.  You may choose to engage in a holy relationship in the manner that I just spoke of, which isn’t by plan.  But it’s going to be more than just having a new different kind of relationship—one that’s at a higher plateau of being.  No.  The thing is, that a holy relationship is the only means you have for going Home or for coming Home.  It is absolutely humungously meaningful.  It is the bottom-line absolute and only way to come Home, to Wake up, to come back into your right Mind.  It’s not just a nice alternative to an unholy relationship. 

No. It’s not just a nice alternative to an unholy relationship.  It’s the most momentous singular act that you can engage in.  It’s the act that lets you walk out of the insane asylum.  It’s the act that brings you into the arena where God’s laws prevail. 

It’s the act that annihilates sin, sickness and death. 

It’s the act that illuminates everything as the Kingdom of Heaven that it always has been but which you didn’t see when you were choosing valiantly and with great courage to try to do the impossible and be an independent agent becoming something valid and actual without having a relationship with your Source.  You see?

Yeah, I know . . . you’ve been reading A Course In Miracles.  And you’ve read about unholy relationships and holy relationships . . . it’s very interesting isn’t it.  Stimulating.  But you’ve got to realize that it’s something far more valuable than a source of stimulation.  It involves in its exposure of ideas, your discovering how to do the one thing that will return your sanity to you and cause you to become free of all of the things that you have felt were unjust and inappropriate for you to be bound by, like chance and fate and victimization, and accident and illness and mean-spiritedness. 

Whether you could justify the feeling or not, you all have felt that these represent something invalid, that you shouldn’t be actually subject to them and that actually there must be a way to get beyond them.  Well, there is and it’s here.  But it’s going to mean, as we’ve been talking about, actually changing—actually being in a new way and being it with a Brother or a Sister.

Now I have shared that relationships are with everything:  Brothers and Sisters, plants, inanimate objects, animate objects.  Inanimate objects don’t join with you, as I’ve said.  They don’t join with you in your false assessments—the imaginative meanings that you’ve given to them.  But animate objects, especially ones that you would call sentient or conscious, are different.  Because abandoning an unholy relationship with them requires interacting with whatever game playing they’re engaged in . . . whatever roster of definitions that they have applied to their world which of course, you’re part of.  And so, there are definitions of you as well, and there are purposes to which they put their mind to manipulate you to get what they want that they think you have and so on.

So it gets a little, shall I say, messier—a little bit more complicated.  And it’s not uncommon for everyone to find a way to behave with your animate relationships as though they’re inanimate.  You try to turn them into inanimate things and get them to behave according to rules rather than their heart or their emotion.

Now:

The holy relationship . . .

. . . it says here . . .

. . . is the expression of the holy instant in living in this world.

[repeats] The holy relationship is the expression of the holy instant . . .

. . . stop.  Become still.  Ask the Father or the Holy Spirit, “What is the truth here?”  The truth is revealed with meaning and feeling.  But until it’s expressed, you might say, it might as well not have happened. 

Now that’s not true actually, because it does sit there as an experience for you to actualize by expressing it.  But all of you must become clear on this.  It’s the expression of what becomes known in the holy instant that actualizes the whole reason for there being the provision of the holy instant.  Because when it’s expressed, it’s actualized and it becomes change—change manifest.

The holy relationship is the expression of the holy instant . . .

. . . the holy instant discloses things to you, you become aware of them, of the meaning and the feeling and then you express it in the world—in the world that you have been calling a physical world arising from a big bang but which is actually the Kingdom of Heaven.  And in your actualizing it in this way, in the world, you are doing exactly what it takes to illuminate this “big-bang” world as what it truly Is, the Kingdom of Heaven.

It causes your relationship with things and with others to become holy.  And it causes your affection to be transformed so that you are intent upon acknowledging and upholding and witnessing to that which is holy and whatever you’re in relationship with.  And your intent is to uphold that rather than tear it down.  And of course, tearing it down was, at the bottom line, your goal in the unholy relationship because, as we said, it’s the goal of the unholy relationship to keep God out of the picture, which means it is its goal to keep you unconscious of your divinity, of who you truly Are—and as I said, that is evil.  And that is what the holy instant lifts you out of.  That is It’s purpose.  The holy relationship is a consummation of that.  Very important.

It’s the most important thing!  The holy relationship is the most important thing that exists for orphans—for those who are not Awake.

Again, going into the book . . .

The holy relationship is the expression of the holy instant in living . . .

. . . like actualized . . .

. . . in living in this world. Like everything about salvation, the holy instant is a practical device, witnessed to by . . .

. . . what? . .

. . .  its results.

The manifestation, the actualization, the expression.  You see?

 The holy instant NEVER fails.

You may fail in abiding in the holy instant long enough for the Holy Spirit to register with you, but the holy instant, if you let it register with you, never fails in its function to disclose to you what the truth is here in your relationship so that it might be actualized as the holy relationship that it is.

The holy instant NEVER fails. The experience of it is ALWAYS felt. Yet  without . . .

. . . what? . .

. . . expression, . .

. . . you see?  Keep in mind that all of this is relevant to and relative to, because it’s related to everything.  The holy instant has as its function, to illuminate the holy relationship.  And the holy relationship is the experience of your having, as an orphan, become still and having reached outside of the walls of the orphanage by saying, “Father, what is the truth here?” hearing the Meaning of the answer and feeling it and being moved to act upon it and behave toward what you’re in relationship with as though it’s holy and to reinforce its holiness by not engaging in anything opposed to it.  So that your every action is a confirmation of, not the orphan mentality that your Brother might be employing, but the divine one that he is that your reinforcement of, that your witnessing for, allows him to embrace with perhaps a little bit of confidence or a lot of confidence.  You see?

That’s actualization.  That’s the holy instant causing the expression of the realization of God’s truth and uncovering and illuminating the holiness of the relationship with whatever it is that prompted you to engage in the holy instant. 

This is the practical device—the mechanism—by which the transition from dreaming to being Awake is effected.  This is the way it occurs.

The experience of it is ALWAYS felt. Yet without expression, it is not REMEMBERED.

Important.  Here’s the way it works:  When you engage in expressing the meaning that has been revealed to you as a result of having engaged in the holy instant, it, for lack of better words, jogs your memory and you remember the truth, you remember the holiness of your Brother, you remember the experience of experiencing the holiness of your Brother because you’ve had the experience before.  You’ve had the experience before you chose to say, “Father, I’d rather do it my way.  Father, I’d rather give the meanings to everything.  Father, I want a divorce.” 

Before that, these experiences that we’re talking about you’re coming back into an experience of, were always yours.  And so that it’s like a spiritually visceral remembering of that which you already knew and have always known, [snaps fingers] clicks into place in you.

Listen again:

The holy instant NEVER fails. The experience of it is ALWAYS felt. Yet without expression, it is not REMEMBERED.

When it gets expressed, your memory opens up and you remember what you knew before.  And there’s nothing intellectual about it.  It isn’t a head-trip at all.  You see?  This is the kind of change we’re talking about.  This is what coming back into your right Mind means.

The holy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the relationship became what it is.

The holy relationship . . . this experience of being sane, this experience of Knowing the truth about your Brother or Sister and therefore about yourself, as long as it’s present, it’s a reminder of how it came to be remembered, it’s a reminder of the holy instant.  And the fact that the holy instant is the one and only thing it takes to get out of the crab barrel, to get out of the orphanage, to get out of the orphan mindset, to get out of fear, to get out of sin, sickness and death, anxiety, jealousy, mean-spiritedness, self-protection, it keeps in place the remembrance of what it took and all it took, which wasn’t nearly as much as you might have thought it would take.

And as the unholy relationship is a continuing hymn of hate in praise of ITS maker, so is the holy relationship a happy song of praise to the Redeemer of relationships.

What’s the Redeemer relationships?  The Holy Spirit.  What is the Holy Spirit?  Nothing more than your right Mind.

The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned.

It can’t be remembered because it hasn’t happened before. 

The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned.

And this is important:

It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew.

The simple fact is there are not two “you’s” . . . there are not two of you—a holy one and an unholy one.  There’s only you seeing yourself through a glass darkly or seeing yourself clearly.  So if you’re seeing yourself through a glass darkly, clarity is going to have to insert itself and become present and active and transformational in the glass darkly frame of mind.  You see?

So, the insane you is going to discover sanity right in the middle of what had seemed to be insanity, because there’s just you.  It’s important.

The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned. It is the old, unholy relationship, . .

. . . the self same one . . .

. . . transformed and seen anew. The holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. In all its aspects, as it begins, develops and becomes accomplished, . .

. . . expressed . . .

. . . it represents the REVERSAL of the unholy relationship.

In other words, it’s you in your unholy relationship mode being changed—allowing yourself to be transformed by the renewing of your Mind, by the remembering of what you’ve always Known, but what you have successfully blocked from view.

Be comforted in this; the only difficult phase is the beginning. For here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was.