For this world is the opposite of Heaven, being made to be its opposite, and everything here takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true. In Heaven, where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as union. Here, where the illusion of love is accepted in love’s place, love is perceived as separation and exclusion.
It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for special love from God, that the ego’s hatred triumphs. For the special relationship is the renunciation of the Love of God, and the attempt to secure for the self the specialness that He denied. It is essential to the preservation of the ego that you believe this specialness is not hell, but Heaven. For the ego would never have you see that separation could only be loss, being the one condition in which Heaven could not be.
To everyone Heaven is completion. There can be no disagreement on this, because both the ego and the Holy Spirit accept it. They are, however, in complete disagreement on what completion is, and how it is accomplished. The Holy Spirit knows that completion lies first in union, and then in the extension of union. To the ego completion lies in triumph, and in the extension of the “victory” even to the final triumph over God. In this it sees the ultimate freedom of the [separate] self, for nothing would remain to interfere with the ego. This is [the ego’s] idea of Heaven. And therefore union, which is a condition in which the ego cannot interfere, must be hell. (A Course in Miracles, T-16.V.3:6-5:8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)
Union is hell to the ego because the ego’s false idea of separation cannot exist in union. The ego sees union as annihilation. When we accept the oneness of Love as our reality, the ego no longer seems to exist. To protect its “existence,” the ego offers special relationships as a substitute for the reality of Love’s oneness.
Special relationships offer a fantasy of completion that may seem to satisfy because they fill in what we perceive is lacking when we believe we are separate from God. If we accept the ego’s offerings in special relationships as what we want, we are deceiving ourselves with fantasies. The sense of lack or emptiness we feel cannot be satisfied with fantasies. Only the unity of Love will truly restore our wholeness. Only in this unity is completion true.
Holy Spirit, help me see through the eyes of Love today. Help me recognize illusions for what they are. With Your help, I choose the truth of Love rather than illusions. With Your help, I will remember Heaven.
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