1. The search for the special relationship is the sign that you equate yourself with the ego and not with God. 2For the special relationship has value only to the ego. 3To the ego, unless a relationship has special value it has no meaning, for it perceives all love as special. 4Yet this cannot be natural, for it is unlike the relationship of God and His Son, and all relationships that are unlike this one must be unnatural. 5For God created love as He would have it be, and gave it as it is. 6Love has no meaning except as its Creator defined it by His Will. 7It is impossible to define it otherwise and understand it.
2. Love is freedom. 2To look for it by placing yourself in bondage is to separate yourself from it. 3For the Love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! 4As you release, so will you be released. 5Forget this not, or Love will be unable to find you and comfort you.
3. There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks your help, if you would have His. 2The holy instant is His most helpful aid in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the real lure in the special relationship. 3You do not recognize that this is its real appeal, for the ego has taught you that freedom lies in it. 4Yet the closer you look at the special relationship, the more apparent it becomes that it must foster guilt and therefore must imprison.
4. The special relationship is totally meaningless without a body. 2If you value it, you must also value the body. 3And what you value you will keep. 4The special relationship is a device for limiting your self to a body, and for limiting your perception of others to theirs. 5The Great Rays would establish the total lack of value of the special relationship, if they were seen. 6For in seeing them the body would disappear, because its value would be lost. 7And so your whole investment in seeing it would be withdrawn from it.
5. You see the world you value. 2On this side of the bridge you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in separate unions and to become one by losing. 3When two individuals seek to become one, they are trying to decrease their magnitude. 4Each would deny his power, for the separate union excludes the universe. 5Far more is left outside than would be taken in, for God is left without and nothing taken in. 6If one such union were made in perfect faith, the universe would enter into it. 7Yet the special relationship the ego seeks does not include even one whole individual. 8The ego wants but part of him, and sees only this part and nothing else.
6. Across the bridge it is so different! 2For a time the body is still seen, but not exclusively, as it is seen here. 3The little spark that holds the Great Rays within it is also visible, and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. 4Once you have crossed the bridge, the value of the body is so diminished in your sight that you will see no need at all to magnify it. 5For you will realize that the only value the body has is to enable you to bring your brothers to the bridge with you, and to be released together there.
7. The bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in the perspective of reality. 2On this side, everything you see is grossly distorted and completely out of perspective. 3What is little and insignificant is magnified, and what is strong and powerful cut down to littleness. 4In the transition there is a period of confusion, in which a sense of actual disorientation may occur. 5But fear it not, for it means only that you have been willing to let go your hold on the distorted frame of reference that seemed to hold your world together. 6This frame of reference is built around the special relationship. 7Without this illusion there could be no meaning you would still seek here.
8. Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality. 2Time is kind, and if you use it on behalf of reality, it will keep gentle pace with you in your transition. 3The urgency is only in dislodging your mind from its fixed position here. 4This will not leave you homeless and without a frame of reference. 5The period of disorientation, which precedes the actual transition, is far shorter than the time it took to fix your mind so firmly on illusions. 6Delay will hurt you now more than before, only because you realize it is delay, and that escape from pain is really possible. 7Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this: You could not long find even the illusion of love in any special relationship here. 8For you are no longer wholly insane, and you would soon recognize the guilt of self-betrayal for what it is.
9. Nothing you seek to strengthen in the special relationship is really part of you. 2And you cannot keep part of the thought system that taught you it was real, and understand the Thought that knows what you are. 3You have allowed the Thought of your reality to enter your mind, and because you invited it, it will abide with you. 4Your love for it will not allow you to betray yourself, and you could not enter into a relationship where it could not go with you, for you would not want to be apart from it.
10. Be glad you have escaped the mockery of salvation the ego offered you, and look not back with longing on the travesty it made of your relationships. 2Now no one need suffer, for you have come too far to yield to the illusion of the beauty and holiness of guilt. 3Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. 4What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful and very dangerous. 5See no illusion of truth and beauty there. 6And be you thankful that there is a place where truth and beauty wait for you. 7Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you for the simple willingness to give up nothing because it is nothing.
11. The new perspective you will gain from crossing over will be the understanding of where Heaven is. 2From this side, it seems to be outside and across the bridge. 3Yet as you cross to join it, it will join with you and become one with you. 4And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this you gave up nothing! 5The joy of Heaven, which has no limit, is increased with each light that returns to take its rightful place within it. 6Wait no longer, for the Love of God and you. 7And may the holy instant speed you on the way, as it will surely do if you but let it come to you.
12. The Holy Spirit asks only this little help of you: Whenever your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still attracts you, enter with Him into a holy instant, and there let Him release you. 2He needs only your willingness to share His perspective to give it to you completely. 3And your willingness need not be complete because His is perfect. 4It is His task to atone for your unwillingness by His perfect faith, and it is His faith you share with Him there. 5Out of your recognition of your unwillingness for your release, His perfect willingness is given you. 6Call upon Him, for Heaven is at His Call. 7And let Him call on Heaven for you.