The Quest for Right Relationships

“Your quest for what is missing thus becomes the race you run against death. You seek it here, you seek it there, and scurry on to the next thing and the next. Each person runs this race alone, with hope only of victory for himself. You realize not that if you were to stop and take your brother’s hand, the racecourse would become a valley full of lilies, and you would find yourself on the other side of the finish line, able at last to rest.” (ACOL, C:9.40)

“If you were to stop and take your brother’s hand.” Yes! Here A Course of Love is saying the same thing that A Course in Miracles does. In ACIM, we are encouraged to realize that our way home is in a holy relationship with our brother. And this method, for Jesus, has not changed. We find our way back to God by loving our brother (or sister).

We are constantly looking for salvation alone, fruitlessly. But even Ruth Montgomery’s Guides said that we have to take our brother’s hand, that we cannot find our way back to God in a solitary and lonely search. Yet we still try, and it is such a pity! We need only acknowledge our relationship, in sharing, in joining with all, to know the ultimate in salvation, the enlightenment process itself.

Jesus’s language in this passage is so very beautiful. “The racecourse would become a valley full of lilies.” He invoked herein the same image as A Course in Miracles as well. Jesus likes lilies, and we do, too. Our Easter lilies are a case in point.

So what do we do now? We simply and humbly make a decision that we will join with our brothers and sisters in the walk homeward. We will no longer seek to be solitary seekers. Our seeking does have an end, we will learn in A Course of Love, but in the Course proper, we are not yet at that point.

Join today with the significant others in your life. Let their turmoil and troubles be your own as well, but not to disturb your peace, for this turmoil is illusory. Never forget that this world is an illusion—at least until we reach the real world toward which we are heading. And then, it is very likely that the real is intangible, being of God, Who has no form.

The best thing that we can do today is to determine that we are One with our brothers and sisters as well as One with God. God, being within, is always available for our communion with Him. He never does forsake us, as traditional Christianity has often said. Be humble today. Ask what we should do next. And it is very likely that that next action will be a gift to our brothers and sisters, the others in our world. There is no better way to spend a day, for giving and receiving are one, and what we give to others is returned to us many times over.