I wish to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In a single area of the book it covers “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds like you need one other specific person in order to awaken. Therefore, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the partnership that reflects enlightenment in my experience, and I for them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you actually have to have another to assist you awaken?
I appreciate your own time so much and thanks for the help in my experience and others. I thanks and I thank God for you. Namaste.
David Hoffmeister: Thanks for the openness and your willingness to look deeply at what’s underneath these topics and issues acim teacher. A Course in Miracles teaches that the split mind contains both the problem (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they’re brought together, only One remains.
Your body and the world are usually the focus of ego’s perspective, for this seeks to create real problems and struggles on earth and to prevent the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit. The ego’s distorted world is the merchandise of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief it is possible to create an identity which God did not create. The ego is this identity problem and it was Answered or forgiven by the Holy Spirit the instant it appeared to arise. This one problem could be described being an authority problem or perhaps a confusion in who’s the author of Reality. Your head that believes in the truth of the time-space cosmos has a control issue, for this believes so it can create itself. This ego mind also thinks it is in competition with God, although this is pushed out of conscious awareness. This unconscious ego thought system is exposed in the A Course in Miracles Workbook lessons, and Lesson 13 contains an excellent example of the unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I’m in competition with God.”
This is the start of training the mind to forgive, for the focus is brought back to the mind, back once again to thinking, and removed from your body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are types of projection, of seeing the problem where it is not: in the world. Your head cannot tolerate the belief in a battle with God, and this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue this type of belief entails is then projected to your body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to control the script or your body, is an endeavor to control the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that days gone by can just only be forgiven or released or seen as false—not fixed or controlled or changed.
Exactly the same ego dynamic is underneath interpersonal relationship struggles of power and control, of wanting to correct or change a person or perhaps a self-image. Personal relationships may appear to sail happily along for awhile, yet the make-believe self-concept IS the non-public perspective and thus is always on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is really a decision. The ego is really a decision. Atonement is your choice that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your choice to believe that the mind may be separate from God. Once the mind believed so it had separated and built this time-space world, this time-space world of bodies became its substitute identity, as it believed it had thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The world was made up as a substitute identity. The sleeping mind is split on your choice of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world is not Identity. This world is definitely an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds the mind constantly, “This world is not your Home. This world is not your Identity. This world is not real.” Whilst the mind is split it is hearing another voice (the ego) that’s saying: “You’ve done it. You’ve separated from God. You’d better make the most effective of it and find something of the world to identify with. You can never return back for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem to become a substitute identity. The ego mind seems to be identified with your body, with family, with environments that appear to surround it (i.e., I’m an American, Japanese, I’m male, I’m female, I’m from a rich family, from an unhealthy family, I’m Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) All of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the little personal self are typical part of the construction. Your head is extremely shaky about this small identity, this small self, this little me. So the little me is shaky, and it seems like other persons give the little me reality and importance (i.e., you’re my son, my daughter, you’re my boss, you’re a loving father, etc.) and all the different issues that these images be seemingly telling this little me be seemingly really important. Praise thus seems extremely important (i.e., you are a person and you’re a good one!).
Praise and acceptance from others SEEM to stabilize this very shaky thing (i.e., you’re a great lover, you’re a great provider, you’re great with the children, you have a superb intellect, you have this type of heart, you help serve so many other people, you’re a great team-player, on and on). This aspect of the self-concept says that you are a person and you have most of these positive attributes that really cause you to an invaluable and worthy person, that make you stick out above the crowd. You’re not only anyone—you’re somebody special. The flip side is criticism, which directly reflects the shaky sense of self. Criticism would be: you’re never as great as you think you are, you’re not this type of good team player, this type of good provider, so good in bed—all the things which can be taken as insults to the non-public self-concept). That’s the flip side of the strokes. To this ego self-concept that believes both sides (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a great threat, for the Holy Spirit results in the experience of forgiveness or the realization that none of the tiny images perceived as separate have any reality.
Once the criticism seems in the future, the ego attempts a substitution. It thinks, “I don’t need this. I’ll go elsewhere and start other relationships with people who is able to appreciate my talents and skills and abilities, appreciate my personhood. I will avoid those negative influences on earth and those negative people. I’ll find someone else or join friends where people are like-minded and overlook the remaining portion of the world. These new people will like me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an endeavor to maintain a feeling of specialness, a feeling of separation, a feeling of individuality (a private mind with private thoughts). Those attempts are special love relationships. They seem to bolster worth and value and to validate personhood. And they provide a false witness for clinging to the ego as identity. To the ego, past associations serve to offer personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit implies that past associations offer nothing of value, for they were made by the ego to deny the facts of God’s Love.
Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and has an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. Whilst the ego’s believed relationships will be seemingly specific, yet each one of these will present a chance to release the belief in specifics. Divine Mind is Abstract and Universal. Forgiveness may be the bridge to the remembrance of Christ and God, Divine Abstraction. Thus the Holy Spirit teaches in A Course in Miracles:
“Whenever you meet anyone, remember it is really a holy encounter. As you see him you will dsicover yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you consider him you will consider yourself. Always remember this, for in him you will discover yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they’re given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I’m always there with you, in remembrance of you.