OrEd-T-16.8-The End of Illusions

OrEd-T-16.8-The End of Illusions70. It is impossible to let the past go without relinquishing the special relationship. For the special relationship is an attempt to reenact the past and change it. Imagined slights, remembered pain, past disappointments, perceived injustices, and deprivations all enter into the special relationship, which becomes a way in which I seek to restore my self-esteem. What basis would I have for choosing a special partner without the past? Every such choice is made because of something "evil" in the past that I cling to, and which must be atoned for by someone else.71. The special relationship takes vengeance on the past. By seeking to remove suffering in the past, it overlooks the present in its preoccupation with the past and its total commitment to it. No special relationship is experienced in the present. Shades of the past envelop it and make it what it is. It has no meaning in the present, and if it means nothing now, it cannot have any real meaning at all. How can I change the past except in fantasy? And who can give me what I think the past deprived me of? The past is nothing. I will not seek to lay the blame for deprivation on it, for the past is gone. I cannot really not let go what has already gone. Therefore, it must be that I am keeping the illusion that the past has not gone. It serves some purpose that I want fulfilled that could not be fulfilled in the present, only in the past. 72. I must not underestimate the intensity of the ego's drive for vengeance on the past. It is savage and completely insane. For the ego remembers everything that I have done which offended it and seeks retribution from me. The fantasies it brings to the special relationships it chooses in which to act out its hate, are fantasies of my destruction. For the ego holds the past against me, and in my escape from the past, it sees itself deprived of the vengeance it believes that I so justly deserve. Yet, without my alliance in my own destruction, the ego could not hold me to the past.73. The past is gone. I will not try to preserve the past in the special relationship which binds me to the past. The special relationship teaches me that salvation is past, and that I must return to the past to find salvation. There is no fantasy which does not contain the dream of retribution for the past. In the special relationship, I am allowing my destruction to be. This is obviously insane. What is less obvious is that the present is useless to me while I am the ego's ally. I would not act out the dream, but let it go.74. In the special relationship it does not seem that I am seeking vengeance. Even when hatred and savagery briefly break through into awareness, the illusion of love is not profoundly shaken. Yet, I am never allowed to be aware of acting out of vengeance on myself. But what else could it be? I do not look for glory in myself, for I have denied that it is there. The relationship becomes my substitute for glory. Vengeance becomes my substitute for Atonement, and escape from vengeance becomes my loss.75. Beside the ego's insane notion of salvation, the Holy Spirit gently lays the holy instant. The Holy Spirit must teach through comparisons and uses opposites to point to truth. The holy instant is the opposite of the ego's belief in vengeance for the past. The holy instant accepts that the past is gone. The desire for vengeance is uprooted and disappears. The stillness and peace of now is mine, and truth is here.76. I may attempt to bring illusions into the holy instant and delay my full awareness of the complete difference between my experience of truth and illusion. But not for long! The power of the Holy Spirit will prevail, because I joined Him. The illusions I bring with me will weaken the experience of Him for a while, and drive His experience from my mind. Yet the holy instant is eternal, and my illusions of time will not prevent the timeless from being what it is nor me from experiencing it as it is.77. What God has given me is truly given and will be truly received. For God's gifts have no reality apart from my receiving them. My receiving completes His giving. I will receive because it is His Will to give. He gave the holy instant to be given me, and it is impossible that I not receive it, because He gave it. When He willed that His Son be free, His Son was free. In the holy instant is His reminder that His Son will always be exactly as he was created. And everything the Holy Spirit teaches me is to remind me that I have received what God has given me.78. Only the illusions I have held against my brothers must be forgiven. There is nothing I can hold against reality. Their reality has no past, and only illusions can be forgiven. God holds nothing against anyone, for He is incapable of illusions of any kind. I release my brothers from the slavery of their illusions, by forgiving them for the illusions that I perceive in them. This is the way I will learn that I have been forgiven, because it is I who offered illusions to my brothers. In the holy instant, this is done for me in time to bring to me the true condition of Heaven. 79. I remember that I always choose between truth and illusion--between the real Atonement which heals, and the ego's "atonement" that destroys. As I seek only my place in the plan of Atonement arising from God's Love, the power of God and all His Love, without limit, will support me. In seeking how Atonement can come to me, I will be an ally of God, and not the ego. I place all my investment in salvation in my relationship with God. His help is sufficient, for His Messenger understands how to restore the Kingdom to me. 80. I seek and find His message in the holy instant, where all illusions are forgiven. From there the miracle extends to bless everyone and to resolve all problems, be they perceived as great or small, possible or impossible. There is nothing that will not give place to Him and to His majesty. To join in close relationship with Him is to accept relationships as real, and to forgive all illusions for the reality of my relationship with God. Praise be to my relationship with Him and to no other. The truth lies here and nowhere else. I choose this or nothing. 81. Forgive me my illusions, Father and help me accept my true relationship with You, in which there are no illusions, and where none can ever enter. My holiness is Yours. There is nothing in me that needs forgiveness, as Yours is perfect. The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to remember Your forgiveness and Your Love. Let me not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will. And let me receive only what You have given, and accept only this into the mind which You created and which You love. Amen.