Reason and the Holy Relationship

The introduction of reason into the ego's thought system is the beginning of its undoing. For reason and the ego are contradictory. Nor is it possible for them to co-exist in your awareness. And reason's goal is to make plain, and therefore obvious. You can SEE reason. This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite literally. If it is not the body's sight, it MUST be understood. For it is PLAIN, and what is obvious is not ambiguous. It CAN be understood. And here do reason and the ego separate, to go their different ways.

The ego's whole continuance depends on its belief you cannot learn this course. Share this belief, and reason will be unable to see your errors and make way for their correction. For reason sees THROUGH errors, telling you what you thought was real is not. Reason can see the difference between sin and mistakes, because it WANTS correction. Therefore it tells you what you thought was uncorrectable, CAN be corrected. And therefore must have been an error. The ego's opposition to correction leads to its fixed belief in sin, and disregard of errors. It looks on NOTHING that can be corrected.

Thus does the ego damn, and reason save. Reason is not salvation in itself, but it makes way for peace, and brings you to a state of mind in which salvation can be given you. Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, BECAUSE it is an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes.

ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not recognize, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without the meaning that the whole would give. And yet mistakes, regardless of their form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It would preserve all errors, and make them sins. For here is its own stability, its heavy anchor in the shifting world it made; the rock on which its church is built, and where its worshippers are bound to bodies, and believe the body's freedom is their own.

Reason will tell you that the form of error is not what makes it a mistake. If what the form CONCEALS is a mistake, the form cannot prevent correction. The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and not see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true.

Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means. But not for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning.

(There is) nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form means understanding has been obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they can deceive. You can change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It could not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is not reality, it must be an illusion, and is not THERE to see. And, if you see it, you must be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it were. What cannot see beyond what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions as the truth. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?

Let not the FORM of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack, except what you associate with his body, which YOU believe can sin? Beyond his errors is his holiness, and YOUR salvation. You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him, to save yourself. And yet his holiness IS your forgiveness. Can YOU be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness is your salvation?

A holy relationship, however newly born, must value holiness above all else. Unholy values will produce confusion, and UNAWARENESS. In an unholy relationship, each one is valued because he seems to justify the other's sin. He sees within the other what impels him to sin against his will. And thus he lays his sins upon the other, and is attracted to him to PERPETUATE his sins. And so it must become impossible for each to see himself as causing sin, by his desire to have sin real. Yet reason sees a holy relationship as what it is; a common state of mind, where both give errors gladly to correction, that both may happily be healed as one.

(May 24, 1967)

And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted! Raise it together, for it is but a veil that stands between you. Either alone will see it as a solid block, nor realize how thin the drapery that separates you now. Yes, it is almost over, in your awareness. And peace has reached you even here, before the veil. Think what will happen after! The love of Christ will light your faces, and shine from them into a darkened world that NEEDS the light. And, from this holy place He will return with you, not leaving it or you.

You will become His messengers, returning Him unto Himself. Think of the loveliness that you will see, who walk with Him! And think how beautiful will each of you look to the other! How happy you will be to be together, after such a long and lonely journey where you walked alone. The gates of Heaven, open now for you, will you now open to the sorrowful. And none who looks upon the Christ in you but will rejoice. How beautiful the sight you saw beyond the veil, which you will bring to light the tired eyes of those as weary now as once you were. How thankful will they be to see you come among them, offering Christ's forgiveness to dispel their faith in sin.

Every mistake you make the other will gently have corrected for you. For, in his sight, your loveliness is his salvation, which he would protect from harm. And each will be the other's strong protector from everything that seems to rise between you. So shall you walk the world with me, whose message has not yet been given everyone. For you are here to let it be RECEIVED. God's offer still is open; yet it waits acceptance. From you who have accepted it, is it received. Into your joined hands is it safely given. For you who share it have become its willing guardians and protectors.

To all who share the love of God the grace is given to be the givers of what they have received. And so they learn that it is theirs forever. All barriers disappear before their coming, as every obstacle was finally surmounted that seemed to rise and block their way before. This veil you lift together opens the way to truth to more than you. Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's Saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and release from suffering to everyone who needs a miracle to save him.

How easy is it to offer this miracle to everyone! No-one who has received it for himself could find it difficult. For, by receiving it, he learned it was not given him alone. Such is the function of a holy relationship; to receive together, and give as you received. Standing before the veil, it still seems difficult. But hold out your joined hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share.

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