The Two Pictures

Chapter 17 – 4. The Two Pictures

God established his relationship with you to make you happy, and nothing
you do that does not share his purpose can be real. The purpose God
ascribed to anything is its only function. Because of his reason for creating
his relationship with you, the function of relationships became forever “to
make happy.” And nothing else. To fulfill this function you relate to your
creations as God to his. For nothing God created is apart from happiness,
and nothing God created but would extend happiness as its Creator did.
 
Whatever does not fulfill this function cannot be real.
In this world it is impossible to create. Yet it is possible to make happy. I
have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not deprive you of your
special relationships, but would transform them. And all that is meant by
that is that he will restore to them the function given them by God. The
function you have given them is clearly not to make happy. But the holy
relationship shares God’s purpose, rather than aiming to make a substitute
for it. Every special relationship you have made is a substitute for God’s
 
Will, and glorifies yours instead of his because of the illusion that they are
different.
 
You have made very real relationships even in this world. Yet you do not
recognize them because you have raised their substitutes to such
predominance that, when truth calls to you, as it does constantly, you
answer with a substitute. Every special relationship you have made has, as
its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your mind so completely that
you will not hear the call of truth.
 
In a sense, the special relationship was the ego’s answer to the creation of
the Holy Spirit, who was God’s answer to the separation. For although the
ego did not understand what had been created, it was aware of threat. The
whole defense system the ego evolved to protect the separation from the
 
Holy Spirit was in response to the gift with which God blessed it, and by his
blessing enabled it to be healed. This blessing holds within itself the truth
about everything. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit is in close
relationship with you, because in him is your relationship with God restored
to you. The relationship with him has never been broken, because the Holy
Spirit has not been separate from anyone since the separation. And through
him have all your holy relationships been carefully preserved, to serve
God’s purpose for you.
 
The ego is alert to threat, and the part of your mind into which the ego was
accepted is very anxious to preserve its reason, as it sees it. It does not
realize that it is totally insane. And you must realize just what this means if
you would be restored to sanity. The insane protect their thought systems,
but they do so insanely. And all their defenses are as insane as what they are
supposed to protect. The separation has nothing in it, no part, no “reason,”
and no attribute that is not insane. And its “protection” is part of it, as insane
as the whole. The special relationship, which is its chief defense, must
therefore be insane.
 
You have but little difficulty now in realizing that the thought system the
special relationship protects is but a system of delusions. You recognize, at
least in general terms, that the ego is insane. Yet the special relationship still
seems to you somehow to be “different. “Yet we have looked at it far closer
than we have at many other aspects of the ego’s thought system that you
have been willing to let go. While this one remains, you will not let the
others go. For this one is not different. Retain this one, and you have
retained the whole.
 
It is essential to realize that all defenses do what they would defend. The
underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they offer what they defend.
 
What they defend is placed in them for safe-keeping, and as they operate
they bring it to you. Every defense operates by giving gifts, and the gift is
always a miniature of the thought system the defense protects, set in a
golden frame. The frame is very elaborate, all set with jewels, and deeply
carved and polished. Its purpose is to be of value in itself, and to divert your
attention from what it encloses. But the frame without the picture you
cannot have. Defenses operate to make you think you can.
 
The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all
the defenses the ego uses. Its thought system is offered here, surrounded by
a frame so heavy and so elaborate that the picture is almost obliterated by its
imposing structure. Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and
fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and selfaggrandizement,
and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction. The
glitter of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds
and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.
 
Look at the picture. Do not let the frame distract you. This gift is given you
for your damnation, and if you take it you will believe that you are damned.
 
You cannot have the frame without the picture. What you value is the
frame, for there you see no conflict. Yet the frame is only the wrapping for
the gift of conflict. The frame is not the gift. Be not deceived by the most
superficial aspects of this thought system, for these aspects enclose the
whole, complete in every aspect. Death lies in this glittering gift. Let not
your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. Look at the picture,
and realize that death is offered you.
 
That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth. The truth
itself needs no defense, but you do need defense against your acceptance of
the gift of death. When you who are truth accept an idea so dangerous to
truth, you threaten truth with destruction. And your defense must now be
undertaken, to keep truth whole. The power of Heaven, the love of God, the
tears of Christ, and the joy of his eternal Spirit are marshalled to defend you
from your own attack. For you attack Them, being part of Them, and They
must save you, for They love Themselves.
 
The holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven. It is a
picture, too, set in a frame. Yet if you accept this gift you will not see the
frame at all, because the gift can only be accepted through your willingness
to focus all your attention on the picture. The holy instant is a miniature of
eternity. It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus
on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you
think it was a picture. Without the frame, the picture is seen as what it
represents. For as the whole thought system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the
whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity and set in time
for you.
 
Two gifts are offered you. Each is complete, and cannot be partially
accepted. Each is a picture of all that you can have, seen very differently.
 
You cannot compare their value by comparing a picture to a frame. It must
be the pictures only that you compare, or the comparison is wholly without
meaning. Remember that it is the picture that is the gift. And only on this
basis are you really free to choose. Look at the pictures. Both of them. One
is a tiny picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its
enormous and disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed and
hung in light, lovely to look upon for what it is.
 
You who have tried so hard, and are still trying, to fit the better picture into
the wrong frame and so combine what cannot be combined, accept this and
be glad: These pictures are each framed perfectly for what they represent.
 
One is framed to be out of focus and not seen. The other is framed for
perfect clarity. The picture of darkness and of death grows less convincing
as you search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless stone that seems
to shine from the frame in darkness is exposed to light, it becomes dull and
lifeless, and ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally you look
upon the picture itself, seeing at last that, unprotected by the frame, it has no
meaning.
 
The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain eternity. There is
no distraction here. The picture of Heaven and eternity grows more
convincing as you look at it. And now, by real comparison, a transformation
of both pictures can at last occur. And each is given its rightful place when
both are seen in relation to each other. The dark picture, brought to light, is
not perceived as fearful, but the fact that it is just a picture is brought home
at last. And what you see there you will recognize as what it is; a picture of
what you thought was real, and nothing more. For beyond this picture you
will see nothing.
 
The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed
into what lies beyond the picture. As you look on this, you realize that it is
not a picture, but a reality. This is no figured representation of a thought
system, but the Thought itself. What it represents is there. The frame fades
gently and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of
creation in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value and
entirely deprived of meaning.
 
As God ascends into his rightful place and you to yours, you will experience
again the meaning of relationship and know it to be true. Let us ascend in
peace together to the Father, by giving him ascendance in our minds. We
will gain everything by giving him the power and the glory, and keeping no
illusions of where they are. They are in us, through his ascendance. What he
has given is his. It shines in every part of him, as in the whole. The whole
reality of your relationship with him lies in our relationship to one another.
 
The holy instant shines alike on all relationships, for in it they are one. For
here is only healing, already complete and perfect. For here is God, and
where he is only the perfect and complete can be.