A Course In Miracles Talk 7 - Special Love Relationships

This is the seventh Course in Miracles talk,

And it's on special love relationships.

The text states,

The special love relationship is the ego's chief weapon for keeping you from heaven.

It is but a shabby substitute for what makes you whole in truth,

Not in illusion.

During our lifetime,

We generally spend large amounts of time in dependent,

Needy relationships.

These may be with our parents,

Friends,

Lovers,

Children,

Employers,

Or anyone else we think will fulfill our needs.

We also create dependence on food,

Muddy,

Alcohol,

Cigarettes,

Books,

Cars,

Clothes,

And other material items.

All this is based on the idea that happiness must lie outside ourselves in the ego's world of form.

The Course refers to these forms as idols that are made to take the place of God's love for us.

What is it that forces us to look outside ourselves for peace and joy?

When we broke our conscious link with our home in heaven,

We were left with a terrible emptiness inside our mind.

The Course refers to this as the scarcity principle.

We felt there was something very important missing in our life,

But we were not consciously aware of what it was.

The ego's mechanism of denial enabled us to hide our guilt,

But it also removed the memory of home.

But we could not completely forget God and His Kingdom,

So a faint,

Haunting memory remains.

As the Workbook states in Lesson 182,

The world you seem to live in is not home to you,

And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true,

And memory of home keeps haunting you,

As if there were a place that called you to return,

Although you do not recognise the voice,

Nor what it is the voice reminds you of.

Yet still you feel an alien here,

From somewhere all unknown.

Turning to the ego for its advice,

It tells us that there is certainly something missing in us,

And the only solution to our misery is to look outside our mind and find it in the world.

Once again,

The ego's solution directs our search away from the love of the Holy Spirit in our mind,

And to the world outside,

And thus ensures the continuity of the ego.

We now embark on a fruitless search for happiness,

Where it cannot be found.

The text states,

You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end the ego has accepted as its own.

When you have achieved it,

It has not satisfied you.

Our spiritual poverty may be translated into a search for money,

However,

We never seem to get enough to satisfy us.

When we buy some new clothing,

We often experience an initial satisfaction,

But then,

Sometime later,

We see another item which is more attractive than the one we bought previously,

And now we want this one.

Or we may translate our need to rejoin with God as the need to join sexually with another body.

We feel that frequent sexual union will be a satisfactory substitute for spiritual union.

None of what has been written above is implying that the ego's world of form is sinful and should be avoided.

This would make the error real,

As the Course says,

And lead to asceticism and self-debasement.

Focusing on our unworthiness,

Or escaping through pleasure-seeking,

Serves the ego's goal of keeping us guilty and centred on the world.

To the Holy Spirit,

The world is but a classroom of experience where,

Instead of finding guilt,

We may learn forgiveness,

And begin to awaken from the dream of separation.

We need to be in the world but not of it,

The middle path which the Buddha taught 2500 years ago.

There is nothing like a relationship,

Irrespective of its form,

To bring into our consciousness all that needs healing and forgiving in our mind.

Without the mirror of relationship,

Our guilt would be too difficult to discover.

All our relationships must begin with the goal of fulfilling our ego needs.

To direct unconditional love at one person is a contradiction in terms.

When we finally awaken to who we really are,

Our love will extend to everyone equally and without exception.

We thus need the relationships of this world to learn forgiveness.

Let us look more closely at what happens in a special love relationship.

We will take,

As our example,

A co-dependent relationship between two lovers.

However,

What we are about to explore will apply to all forms of relationship which are based on needs.

Feeling the pain and emptiness within us,

We look for someone to fill this void.

It is as if we had a bottomless pit inside our heart,

Which we hope we can fill with something outside ourself.

We look for a special someone with special characteristics.

Our ego is always very selective and will make up an appropriate shopping list for us.

On this list will be included what sort of body and characteristics we require in our partner,

Their age,

Shape,

Colour and degree of beauty,

And whether they have a sense of humour or are kind,

Sensitive and caring.

The text states,

The special relationship is totally meaningless without a body.

If you value it,

You must also value the body.

And what you value,

You will keep.

A special relationship is a device for limiting yourself to a body and for limiting your perception of others to theirs.

Perhaps we are looking for a protective father or a kind mother to look after us.

Maybe instead we want a dependent child so we feel needed and have someone to rescue.

When we find someone who meets our needs,

That is,

Fulfills our shopping list,

And we also meet their needs,

A special relationship is formed.

The initial phase is often referred to as the honeymoon period,

As both partners now experience happiness,

Feeling that at last their bottomless pits have been filled.

They say they have fallen in love,

But the reality of the situation is that they have fallen into needs.

Whilst the needs are mutually met,

Partners are unaware that this relationship is but another special hate relationship with an attractive border surrounding it,

Because our partner continuously reminds us of our lack of self-worth,

The very reason that we are using them to fulfil our bottomless pit.

We hate this lack of self-worth and guilt within us,

And so must hate those who remind us of it.

Our dependence on our partner will breed contempt as we hate to rely on others.

Thus the special relationship ends up increasing our pain and emptiness,

Instead of reducing it as we had first unconsciously hoped.

Here we see clearly the goal of all special relationships,

Both of hate and love,

Which is to create guilt and thus maintain our belief in the ego.

The text states,

Yet the closer you look at the special relationship,

The more apparent it becomes that it must foster guilt and therefore must imprison.

The ego has told us we are sinners and our guilt is the proof that the ego must be right.

When our needs are no longer met,

The buried hate for our partner comes to the surface,

And the ego tells us to project this onto them.

Once again our anger feels justified as we attempt to get our needs met by making our partner feel guilty.

You told me you loved me,

But look how you treat me,

Is a common ego ploy.

Even if the relationship is repaired and we make up,

A seed of doubt is sown at this point.

This will increase each time a falling out occurs and doubt about the future of the relationship is registered.

At this point the ego may counsel us to find another more appropriate partner.

The cycle can repeat itself over and over again,

Where we continuously draw another partner and the same pattern re-emerges.

But we also have available to us the Holy Spirit's guidance,

If we so desire it.

If we turn to Him at any point in this cycle,

He will tell us to change the goal of our relationship from special to holy,

So that we may learn His lesson of forgiveness.

In another talk I shall explore the concept of the holy relationship in more detail.

Let's summarise.

Believing that the separation from God has really occurred,

We are left with a deep sense of sin and its attendant feeling of guilt.

As previously stated,

It is the psychological law of the ego that guilt demands punishment,

And we now fear this will happen to us.

We turn to the ego to help us with this burden.

Although the presence of the Holy Spirit will tell us we have nothing to fear,

All is but a silly dream.

We fear the Holy Spirit as He is the agent of an angry and vengeful God.

The ego's counsel is simple.

We need only deny that the separation from God has ever happened,

As well as the guilt we carry,

And project it onto our relationships and the world in general.

We are no longer the one with the problem,

Everyone and everything else is.

What we hate about ourselves we now deny and project onto our enemies.

That was the special relationship.

Our anger towards them demands that they change their behaviour to restore our lost peace.

Our problem is now seen outside ourselves and is thus impossible to heal.

The most powerful weapon the ego has against God is the special love relationship.

Feeling there is something seriously lacking in us,

Called the scarcity principle,

We look for special people,

Lovers,

Friends,

Parents,

Therapists,

Etc.

,

To fill our hole of despair with their attributes,

Money,

Admiration,

Sex,

Security,

Help,

And so on.

Thus we seek a substitute for the only relationship that will satisfy us,

Our relationship with God,

Which we think we have lost forever.

The Holy Spirit would counsel us to use these very relationships as classrooms to learn forgiveness.

The Holy Spirit can use everything that the ego uses,

But for the opposite purpose,

I.

E.

To join instead of to separate.

In our special love relationships we manipulate people to fulfil our needs,

Creating bargains where we exchange gifts between us which we think we need from each other.

However,

The unjustified attack within the special relationship,

And the manipulation and disguised attack of the special love relationship,

Only increases our level of guilt.

Thus following the counsel of the ego only increases our guilt,

Which is exactly what the ego always wanted,

For now we will continue our faith in its reality.

We created the ego thought system and it fights to survive.

Its counsel maintains our sense of separation and keeps us in a virtuous circle of guilt and attack.

The text states,

All sickness comes from separation,

And the separationist denies it goes.

Our only choice is to listen to our ego and project,

Or to take the advice of the Holy Spirit and choose the miracle of forgiveness instead.