I wish to ask you about what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one the main book it discusses “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you will need one other specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore a course in miracles teachers, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the connection that reflects enlightenment if you ask me, and I for them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really need to have another to help you awaken?
I appreciate your time so much and thank you for the help if you ask me and others. I thank you and I thank God for you. Namaste.
David Hoffmeister: Thanks for the openness and your willingness to check deeply at what’s underneath these topics and issues. 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 entire world are usually the focus of ego’s perspective, for it seeks to create real problems and struggles in the world and to avoid the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit. The ego’s distorted world is the merchandise of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief that it is possible to create an identity which God didn’t create. The ego is this identity problem and it had been Answered or forgiven by the Holy Spirit the instant it appeared to arise. This 1 problem could be described as an authority problem or even a confusion in who’s the author of Reality. Your head that believes in the fact of the time-space cosmos has a control issue, for it believes that it can create itself. This ego mind also thinks it’s in competition with God, although that 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 a great example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I’m in competition with God.”
This really is the start of training your head to forgive, for the focus is cut back to your head, back to thinking, and taken away from your body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are samples of projection, of seeing the problem where it’s 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 manage the script or your body, is an attempt to manage the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can only be forgiven or released or seen as false—not fixed or controlled or changed.
The exact same ego dynamic is underneath interpersonal relationship struggles of power and control, of wanting to fix or change an individual or even a self-image. Personal relationships may appear to sail happily along for awhile, yet the make-believe self-concept IS the personal perspective and thus is obviously on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is a decision. The ego is a decision. Atonement is your decision that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your decision to trust that your head can be separate from God. Once your head believed that 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 instead identity. The sleeping mind is split on your decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world is not Identity. This world is definitely an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds your head constantly, “This world is not your Home. This world is not your Identity. This world is not real.” As the mind is split it’s hearing another voice (the ego) that’s saying: “You’ve done it. You’ve separated from God. You’d better make the best of it and find something of the entire world to recognize with. You are able to never return back for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem to become substitute identity. The ego mind appears 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 undesirable family, I’m Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) Many of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the small personal self are all part with this construction. Your head is quite shaky about any of it small identity, this small self, this little me. So the small me is shaky, and it seems like other persons give the small me reality and importance (i.e., you’re my son, my daughter, you’re my boss, you’re a loving father, etc.) and all different issues that these images appear to be telling this little me appear to be really important. Praise thus seems extremely important (i.e., you’re an individual and you’re a good one!).
Praise and acceptance from others SEEM to stabilize this very shaky thing (i.e., you’re a good lover, you’re a good provider, you’re great with the children, you’ve a superb intellect, you’ve this type of heart, you help serve so many others, you’re a good team-player, on and on). This aspect of the self-concept says that you will be an individual and you’ve most of these positive attributes that basically allow you to a valuable and worthy person, that produce you be noticeable 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 will be: you’re much less great as you think you’re, you’re not this type of good team player, this type of good provider, so good in bed—everything which can be taken as insults to the personal self-concept). That’s the flip side of the strokes. To the ego self-concept that believes both sides (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a good threat, for the Holy Spirit contributes to the knowledge 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 can appreciate my talents and skills and abilities, appreciate my personhood. I will avoid those negative influences in the world and those negative people. I’ll find another individual or join friends where people are like-minded and neglect the rest of the world. These new people will like me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an attempt to maintain an expression of specialness, an expression of separation, an expression of individuality (a private mind with private thoughts). Those attempts are special love relationships. They appear to strengthen worth and value and to validate personhood. And they offer a false witness for clinging to the ego as identity. To the ego, past associations serve to provide personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit demonstrates past associations offer nothing of value, for they were created by the ego to deny the reality of God’s Love.
Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and posseses an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. As the ego’s believed relationships will appear to be specific, yet every one will present an opportunity to release the belief in specifics. Divine Mind is Abstract and Universal. Forgiveness could be the bridge to the remembrance of Christ and God, Divine Abstraction. Thus the Holy Spirit teaches in A Course in Miracles:
“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you’ll treat yourself. As you consider him you’ll consider yourself. Never forget 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.