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Chapter 23: The Grace of the Holy Relationship

1. The Golden Circle

Have compassion on yourselves, so long bound by delusion. Rejoice that whom the Divine has joined in a holy relationship have come together, and need no longer look on separation, apart. No two together can perceive separation, for they could never perceive it in the same place and time. Two united establishes that the very idea of separation must be mistaken.

Separation, and the belief in failure and unworthiness that go with it, is a strictly individual perception, looked upon in the other, yet secretly believed by each to be within themself. And each one seems to make a different error, and one the other cannot understand. Sisters and brothers, separation is the same error, made by the same Divine Child, forgiven in the same way of them who made the mistake.

The holiness of your relationship forgives you both, undoing the effects of what you each alone believed and perceived. And with the going of these effects, the need for the belief in unworthiness has gone with them. Who has a need for a belief in unworthiness? Only the lonely and alone, who look upon their sisters and brothers as being different from themselves. It is this difference, perceived but not real, that makes the need for separation, believed but not real, seem justified. And all this would be real if unworthiness were real.

An unholy relationship is based on differences, where each one thinks that the other has what they themself do not have. They come together, each in the attempt to complete themself through taking from the other. They stay until they think there’s nothing left to take, and then move on. And so they wander through a world of strangers unlike themselves, living with their bodies perhaps beneath a common roof that shelters not their hearts, in the same space and yet a world apart.

A holy relationship starts from a different premise. Each one has seen the Altar within, and beheld no unworthiness there, no lack of Love, and therefore no lack of any kind. Accepting their Completion within, they desire to extend It by joining with others, whole as themself. They see no differences between their selves, for differences are only of the body. Therefore, they perceive nothing that they would take from the other. Each confirms their own reality because it is the Truth. Just under Heaven do they stand together, but close enough not to return to the world of illusions. For their holy relationship contains Heaven’s Holiness. How far from Home can a relationship so like to Heaven be?

Think what a holy relationship can teach! Here is belief in differences undone. Here is the faith in differences shifted to the faith in what is truly joined and shared and therefore the same. And Reason now can lead you to the certain conclusion of your union. Your union must extend, as you extended when you joined together. It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to let yourselves be joined. And now the Oneness that you see extends and finally removes all sense of differences, so that the Unity that is within them all becomes apparent. Here is the Golden Circle, where you recognize the Children of the Divine. For what is born into a holy relationship can never end.