I wish to ask you about what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In a single the main book it covers “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you will need one other specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could possibly be the connection that reflects enlightenment if you ask me, and I in their mind! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really need another to assist you awaken?
I appreciate your own time so much and thanks for the help if you ask me and others. I thanks and I thank God for you. Namaste.
David Hoffmeister: Thanks for the openness and your willingness to check deeply at what is underneath these topics and issues. A Course in Miracles teaches that the split mind contains both the situation (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 produce real problems and struggles on earth and to prevent the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit. The ego’s distorted world is the item of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief that it is possible to produce 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 acim teacher. This 1 problem could possibly be described as an authority problem or even a confusion in who’s the writer of Reality. Your head that believes in the reality of the time-space cosmos has a control issue, for it believes so it can produce itself. This ego mind also thinks it’s in competition with God, although this really 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 of the unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I believe I’m in competition with God.”
This is the beginning of training your brain to forgive, for the focus is brought back to your brain, back to thinking, and removed from the human body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are samples of projection, of seeing the situation where it’s not: in the world. Your head cannot tolerate the belief in a war with God, which means this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue this kind of belief entails is then projected to the human body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to control the script or the human body, is an effort to control the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can only just be forgiven or released or viewed 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 fix or change a person or even a self-image. Personal relationships may appear to sail happily along for awhile, the make-believe self-concept IS the non-public perspective and thus is always on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is just a decision. The ego is just a decision. Atonement is your choice that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your choice to think that your brain may be separate from God. Once your brain believed so it had separated and built this time-space world, this time-space world of bodies became its substitute identity, because it believed it had thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The world was made up as an alternative identity. The sleeping mind is split on your choice of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world isn’t Identity. This world is definitely an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds your brain constantly, “This world isn’t your Home. This world isn’t your Identity. This world isn’t real.” While 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 very best of it and find something of the entire world to spot with. You are able to never return for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem to become substitute identity. The ego mind seems to be identified with the human body, with family, with environments that seem to surround it (i.e., I’m an American, Japanese, I’m male, I’m female, I’m from a wealthy 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 part of the construction. Your head is quite shaky relating to this 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 the various things 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 youngsters, you have an excellent intellect, you have this kind of heart, you help serve so many others, you’re a great team-player, on and on). This part of the self-concept says that you’re a person and you have all of these positive attributes that basically allow you to a valuable and worthy person, that make you stick out above the crowd. You’re not just 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 are, you’re not this kind of good team player, this kind of good provider, so good in bed—all the things which are taken as insults to the non-public self-concept). That’s the flip side of the strokes. To the ego self-concept that believes both parties (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’ll avoid those negative influences on earth and those negative people. I’ll find someone else or join an organization where folks are like-minded and overlook the rest of the world. These new people will like me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an effort to keep 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 appear to reinforce worth and value and to validate personhood. And they give you a false witness for clinging to the ego as identity. To the ego, past associations serve to give personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit suggests that past associations offer nothing of value, for these were made 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. While the ego’s believed relationships will be seemingly specific, yet every one 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:
“When you meet anyone, remember it is just a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Remember this, for in him you will see 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.