In this YouTube video, Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles read “The Only Real Relationship” (ACIM, T-15.VIII) from the text of A Course In Miracles. This section reminds us that we have opportunities at every instant to renew our identification with the Inner Teacher of Peace we all share. The method ACIM uses is motivating us to notice how crazy we’ve made ourselves by investing in grievances, victimhood, martyrdom, and suffering – even in the most seemingly subtle forms … and then “choosing again” by questioning our ego interpretations without condemning ourselves. This practice requires a moment-to-moment renewal of our commitment to being mindful of when we’re not at peace and asking for help from Holy Spirit until it becomes a second-nature, automatic habit. Like the freeze-frame we sometimes see in media coverage of sports events, we can look (without attack) at when we’re engaged in silly forgivable mind diversions with an objective snapshot and see that our maladaptive solution of wanting to see ourselves unfairly treated isn’t working for us at all!
For achieving this mindful ever-more-frequent renewal, we have the ultimate mentoring help in our right mind available 24/7 which provides always-available help to find true solace and comfort as we reveal that our interpretations did nothing to change our eternal innocent reality. We just need to practice-practice-practice an ever-deepening willingness to forgive and share the relief of the awareness of our common innocence in Truth with everyone we meet or think about.
ACIM’s pure non-dual metaphysics is finitely challenging… but infinitely rewarding, or more accurately restoring – of our real identity to our healed mind. Practicing the Course’s true “quantum” forgiveness inexorably leads us to shift our incomplete “droplet” unfulfilling individual identity and replace it with our real fulfilling shared “oceanic” transpersonal Identity. This shared-interest Identity reflects our True All-Inclusive Oneness that is described metaphorically as true Communication which is instantaneous and complete in pure non-duality which we can’t understand as separate selves, but we can approach by looking at our mind gently, patiently, and kindly each instant.
“Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him and therefore speaks truly.⁵It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it up.⁶The case may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof.” (ACIM, T-5.VI.10:4-6)
We don’t need to reach the depths of despair, depression, and dire straits before asking for help; we just need to keep asking our Inner Kindness Teacher how to see each specific through the eyes of inclusive innocence, regardless of the seeming degree of difficulty or how extenuating the apparent circumstance; each ephemeral issue becomes our classroom of forgiveness when we ask Holy Spirit for help in extricating our mind from the prison of projection either onto others or ourselves.
Here is the full text of this inspiring, holiday-themed section:
“1. The holy instant does not replace the need for learning, for the Holy Spirit must not leave you as your Teacher until the holy instant has extended far beyond time. ²For a teaching assignment such as His, He must use everything in this world for your release. ³He must side with every sign or token of your willingness to learn of Him what the truth must be. ⁴He is swift to utilize whatever you offer Him on behalf of this. ⁵His concern and care for you are limitless. ⁶In the face of your fear of forgiveness, which He perceives as clearly as He knows forgiveness is release, He will teach you to remember that forgiveness is not loss, but your salvation. ⁷And that in complete forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, you are absolved completely.
2. Hear Him gladly, and learn of Him that you have need of no special relationships at all. ²You but seek in them what you have thrown away. ³And through them you will never learn the value of what you have cast aside, but still desire with all your heart. ⁴Let us join together in making the holy instant all that there is, by desiring that it be all that there is. ⁵God’s Son has such great need of your willingness to strive for this that you cannot conceive of need so great. ⁶Behold the only need that God and His Son share, and will to meet together. ⁷You are not alone in this. ⁸The will of your creations calls to you, to share your will with them. ⁹Turn, then, in peace from guilt to God and them.
3. Relate only with what will never leave you, and what you can never leave. ²The loneliness of God’s Son is the loneliness of his Father. ³Refuse not the awareness of your completion, and seek not to restore it to yourself. ⁴Fear not to give redemption over to your Redeemer’s Love. ⁵He will not fail you, for He comes from One Who cannot fail. ⁶Accept your sense of failure as nothing more than a mistake in who you are. ⁷For the holy host of God is beyond failure, and nothing that he wills can be denied. ⁸You are forever in a relationship so holy that it calls to everyone to escape from loneliness, and join you in your love. ⁹And where you are must everyone seek, and find you there.
4. Think but an instant on this: God gave the Sonship to you, to ensure your perfect creation. ²This was His gift, for as He withheld Himself not from you, He withheld not His creation. ³Nothing that ever was created but is yours. ⁴Your relationships are with the universe. ⁵And this universe, being of God, is far beyond the petty sum of all the separate bodies you perceive. ⁶For all its parts are joined in God through Christ, where they become like to their Father. ⁷Christ knows of no separation from His Father, Who is His one relationship, in which He gives as His Father gives to Him.
5. The Holy Spirit is God’s attempt to free you of what He does not understand. ²And because of the Source of the attempt, it will succeed. ³The Holy Spirit asks you to respond as God does, for He would teach you what you do not understand. ⁴God would respond to every need, whatever form it takes. ⁵And so He keeps this channel open to receive His communication to you, and yours to Him. ⁶God does not understand your problem in communication, for He does not share it with you. ⁷It is only you who believe that it is understandable. ⁸The Holy Spirit knows that it is not understandable, and yet He understands it because you made it.
6. In the Holy Spirit alone lies the awareness of what God cannot know, and what you do not understand. ²It is His holy function to accept them both, and by removing every element of disagreement, to join them into one. ³He will do this because it is His function. ⁴Leave, then, what seems to you to be impossible, to Him Who knows it must be possible because it is the Will of God. ⁵And let Him Whose teaching is only of God teach you the only meaning of relationships. ⁶For God created the only relationship that has meaning, and that is His relationship with you.” (ACIM, T-15.VIII.1:1–6:6)
(This video was recorded on December 4, 2022.)
If you have questions or comments about this video, previous videos in this ACIM-related video series, or other Course-related topics, please email them to us via the ACIMblog.com contact form. Susan and Bruce will review and try to respond to questions and suggestions for future conversations. We look forward to extending the conversation with you!
If you are interested in Susan’s excellent weekly Tuesday evening classes based on the teachings of Kenneth Wapnick, you can contact her here.
Here are some prior ACIM-related conversations with Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles.