Relationships are central to our lives.  They can be the source of much joy, satisfaction, connection and love, as well as the cause of great pain, frustration, anger and sorrow.  While there is no disputing that the relationships we experience present us with some of our greatest challenges, it is also true that they offer us our biggest opportunities for growth.  And this is how A Course in Miracles encourages us to see all of our relationships; as the perfect classroom.  The Course teaches us to look – really look – at all our relationships, the seemingly good ones as well as those we struggle with.  Once we understand the dynamics at play, we are able to change our minds about how we see the people in our life and learn to use these relationships for a different purpose.  So, let’s delve a little deeper into what A Course in Miracles has to say on this topic.

 

There’s no denying that we see some relationships in our lives very differently than others.  The relationship you have with your child or spouse is obviously quite different to the one you have with the neighbour down the street, the barista who made your coffee this morning, or the random person standing next to you in the elevator.  But the Course teaches that if you take a closer look at each of these relationships, no matter how close or distant they appear to be, they are actually all the same – they are all special relationships.

 

On the one hand, you have those people with who you have what the world considers to be ‘good’ feelings towards.  These are the people you generally like, see in a favourable light, and maybe even love.  This can be with any relationship, no matter how close.  For example, you can love people you are very close to such as family and friends, and you can also generally like the guy who made your coffee this morning, who you may only have a brief interaction with.  Either way, we consider these to be positive relationships.  The Course calls these our special love relationships.

 

On the other hand, there are those people with who you have what the world would call ‘bad’ feelings towards.  This can include dislike and mild irritation, all the way through to feelings of outright hatred and rage.  You can experience these in your closer relationships, such as family members that you harbour feelings of hate towards, or friends that you actually don’t like very much.  These feelings can also come up with people we barely know or only have brief interactions with.  You may find yourself having a general dislike for the barista who makes your coffee, or you could be repelled by the person standing next to you in the elevator.  The Course calls these our special hate relationships.  In truth, it doesn’t really matter if a relationship is a special love one, or a special hate one.  They are both based on specialness, and so they are both the same.

 

Special relationships are the playing ground of the ego, for every relationship on which the ego embarks is special (T-15.VII.1:7).  The ego is the part of your mind that sees separation, division and differences amongst people, and constantly judges and analyses others based on its own biased standards.  It seeks out the people it thinks have something to offer you and that make you feel good, and tries to avoid or distance itself from others it thinks are different or bad, and cannot offer anything we want.  Whenever you choose to see some people as worthy of your love but other people as unworthy, no matter who they are, you are seeing through the ego’s eyes of specialness.  

 

The ego’s special relationships are highly unstable.  The special love relationship can quickly shift to special hate at any moment, simply if someone we love says something hurtful or does something we don’t like.  This is because the love in our special relationships is conditional and depends upon others meeting certain needs we deem they should fulfill.  When these people seem to be giving us what we want the ego is satisfied, but as soon as they do something which we take offence to, the ego is just as quick to withdraw that love and revert to the special hate relationship.  Likewise, a special hate relationship can quickly turn to special love if another starts acting in a way we approve of, or we feel we can now get something from them that is of value to us.  In both these instances, their acceptance and approval are based upon our own judgement and criteria we have laid upon them. 

 

Special relationships are not the only relationships of which we are capable, however.  There is another type, one that is completely opposite in every way to that of the ego’s.  The Course calls this the holy relationship, and it is the home of the Holy Spirit.  Where the ego uses special relationships to include some people and exclude others, the Holy Spirit sees everyone, no matter who they are, as all the same; all beautiful and equal in their holiness. (T-13.VIII.6:1).  In his eyes, everyone is worthy of his love.  

 

Like the special relationship, the holy relationship can also be applied to both our closer relationships, and our more casual or random ones.  In fact, we must learn to apply the Holy Spirit’s vision to them to all equally if we are to learn that they really are all the same.  This means making the choice to see our family and friends, both the ones we love and the ones we hate, as all worthy of our love regardless of our ego opinions of them.  It also means choosing to see the barista we don’t like as equally as worthy of our love as the barista we do like.  You may be wondering how it is possible to love everyone the same?  You do it simply by looking beyond the illusion of the body and character they appear to be, to the perfect light of Spirit within, which is the same in everyone.  And while this isn’t an easy thing to achieve on a consistent basis, it is possible to learn to see everyone in our life through this vision and transform all our relationships from special ones to holy ones.

 

Unlike the ego’s special relationships, the Holy Spirit’s holy relationship does not shift and change – it is a state of constant love.  It asks no conditions of others and sets no rules for how they should behave if they are to continue receiving your love.  It merely accepts everyone as they are in truth.  In a holy relationship you have no need to get anything from anyone outside of you because you feel no lack within that you need to fill.  And by seeing only love in others, you begin to remember that this love is what you are too.  This opens the way for you to freely extend your love to everyone without feeling the need to attach terms and conditions to that love.

 

Both the special relationship and the holy relationship serve a purpose, and like the thought systems on which they depend, this purpose is very different for each.  The ego’s special relationship is designed to keep your attention rooted in the world.  It compels you to search for fulfilment outside of yourself, and it continually seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies (T-27.VIII.1:4).   The ego uses our special love relationships in an attempt to fulfill the lack and incompleteness we feel within, while our special hate relationships serve its purpose of placing our imagined guilt onto ‘others’ outside of us.  All the while, we remain so fixated on these bodily relationships that we continue to perpetuate the belief that the body is what we are.  Every special relationship you made has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your mind so completely that you will not hear the call for truth (T-17.IV.3:3).

 

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, uses the holy relationship as a way to shift your focus from what appears to be happening in the worldly form of your relationships, to what is happening in your mind.  He uses special relationships, which you have chosen to support the ego, as learning experiences that point to truth (T-15.V.4:5).   As A Course in Miracles teaches, the world, and all the relationships you appear to have in it, are merely projections of the ego thought system in your mind.  So it is in the mind that all correction needs to be made, not in the world as the ego would have you believe.  These relationships then become a classroom in which you learn to return your awareness back to the mind and choose to see them through the Holy Spirit’s vision instead.  Under His teaching, every relationship becomes a lesson in love (T-15.V.4:5-6) where we learn to look beyond the illusion of specialness and embrace everyone in our lives as the same. 

 

Does this mean that we need to be friends with everyone we meet even if they appear hostile or unfavourable towards us?  Or that we are to stay in a harmful situation out of a desire to see everyone in a loving light?  Definitely not!  This can be a point of much confusion in the Course, where students assume that this is what it is implying we do.  But the Course is always aimed at directing a change in mind.  It has nothing to do with the level of form, and it does not instruct you on what to do in the world.  In many cases it would be most unkind to all involved to perpetuate a situation of harm and hostility and it is quite okay to remove yourself from situations that don’t serve you.  

 

The kind of relationships the Course refers to are all at the mind level, not the body.  You can have these relationships with people who are in close proximity to you, and you can equally have them with people over a great distance and even those who have already died.  They are not physical. The special relationship, both love and hate, as well as the holy relationship, are all in the mind.   

 

It is inevitable, that there are going to be people you dislike in the world, and we are not being asked to have the goal of liking everybody.  That would be highly unreasonable.  But it is possible to have a holy relationship with even what you may consider the most abhorrent person.  You don’t need to be associated with this person in your outer life, you just need to be willing to change your mind about how it is you are perceiving them.  You need to be willing to overlook the false identity the ego has created, seeing past this to the truth within them, which is perfect Spirit.  It is this Spirit that you learn to love unconditionally, not the character that your eyes appear to see before you.  

 

The pursuit of transforming our relationships from special ones to holy ones is a lifelong practice.  Our special relationships are so ingrained in our society and minds that it takes a lot of work and dedicated persistence to change this ego programming.  It also means that we will falter many times in the process. It is all part of the journey. As we become more and more willing to see our relationships through the Holy Spirit’s eyes rather than the ego’s, our mind will gradually shift to accommodate this vision.  Until then, we should not feel guilty when we fall short or aren’t progressing as quickly as we think we should.  Remember; Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here. (T-15.V.8:1).