T. 24. II. 1 – 4. Jesus: “Comparison can only be an ego device, for love makes none! Specialness always makes comparisons. It is established from a sense of lack, projected to be seen in another, and maintained by searching for, and keeping clear in sight, all lacks it can perceive. This does it seek, and this is what it looks upon.
And always, whom it thus diminishes would otherwise be your savior, had you not chosen to make of him a tiny unit of comparison for your specialness. Against the littleness you see in him, you make yourself stand tall and stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied, by comparison. And never do you understand it is yourself that you diminish thus!
Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of peace. Who can attack his savior brother and cut him down, yet recognize the strong support he offers? Who can detract from his omnipotence, yet share his power? And who can use him as the gauge of littleness, and yet be released from limits?
You have a function in salvation. Its pursuit will bring you joy. But the pursuit of specialness must bring you pain. Here is a goal that would defeat salvation, and thus run counter to the Will of God. To value specialness is to esteem an alien will, that of the ego, to which illusions of yourself are dearer than the truth.
Specialness is the very idea of sin made real. Sin is impossible, even to imagine, without this base established in your mind. For sin has arisen from it, out of nothingness; an evil flower with no roots at all. Here is the ‘self-made savior,’ the ‘creator who creates unlike the Father,’ and which has made His Son ‘like to itself,’ and not like unto Him. His ‘special’ sons are many, never one, each one in exile from himself, and Him of Whom they are a part. Nor do they love the Oneness which created them as one with Him. They have chosen their specialness instead of Heaven and instead of peace, and wrapped it carefully in sin, to keep it ‘safe’ from truth.
You are not special! If you think you are, and would defend your specialness against the truth of what you really are, how can you know the truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you, when it is only your specialness to which you listen, and which asks and answers you?”