Introduction

T-22.in.1. Take pity on yourself, so long enslaved. ² Rejoice whom God hath joined have come together and need no longer look on sin apart. ³ No two can look on sin together, for they could never see it in the same place and time. ⁴ Sin is a strictly individual perception, seen in the other yet believed by each to be within himself. ⁵ And each one seems to make a different error, and one the other cannot understand. ⁶ Brother, it is the same, made by the same, and forgiven for its maker in the same way. ⁷ The holiness of your relationship forgives you and your brother, undoing the effects of what you both believed and saw. ⁸ And with their going is the need for sin gone with them.

T-22.in.2. Who has need for sin? ² Only the lonely and alone, who see their brothers different from themselves. ³ It is this difference, seen but not real, that makes the need for sin, not real but seen, seem justified. ⁴ And all this would be real if sin were so. ⁵ For an unholy relationship is based on differences, where each one thinks the other has what he has not. ⁶ They come together, each to complete himself and rob the other. ⁷ They stay until they think that there is nothing left to steal, and then move on. ⁸ And so they wander through a world of strangers, unlike themselves, living with their bodies perhaps under a common roof that shelters neither; in the same room and yet a world apart.

T-22.in.3. A holy relationship starts from a different premise. ² Each one has looked within and seen no lack. ³ Accepting his completion, he would extend it by joining with another, whole as himself. ⁴ He sees no difference between these selves, for differences are only of the body. ⁵ Therefore, he looks on nothing he would take. ⁶ He denies not his own reality because it is the truth. ⁷ Just under Heaven does he stand, but close enough not to return to earth. ⁸ For this relationship has Heaven's Holiness. ⁹ How far from home can a relationship so like to Heaven be?

T-22.in.4. Think what a holy relationship can teach! ² Here is belief in differences undone. ³ Here is the faith in differences shifted to sameness. ⁴ And here is sight of differences transformed to vision. ⁵ Reason now can lead you and your brother to the logical conclusion of your union. ⁶ It must extend, as you extended when you and he joined. ⁷ It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body, to let you and your brother be joined. ⁸ And now the sameness that you saw extends and finally removes all sense of differences, so that the sameness that lies beneath them all becomes apparent. ⁹ Here is the golden circle where you recognize the Son of God. ¹⁰ For what is born into a holy relationship can never end.