I wish to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one single the main book it talks about “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds like you need another specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I think I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the relationship 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 help you awaken?
I appreciate your time so much and many thanks for your help if you ask me and others. I many thanks and I thank God for you. Namaste.
David Hoffmeister: Thanks for your openness and your willingness to look deeply at what is underneath these topics and issues a course in miracles. A Course in Miracles teaches that the split mind contains both the issue (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they’re brought together, only One remains.
Your body and the world are always the focus of ego’s perspective, because of it seeks to make real problems and struggles on the planet and to avoid the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit. The ego’s distorted world is the product of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief it is possible to make an identity which God didn’t 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 writer of Reality. Your head that believes in the fact of the time-space cosmos has a get a grip on issue, because of it 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 a great example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am in competition with God.”
This really is the beginning of training your head to forgive, for the focus is brought back to your head, back again to thinking, and recinded from your body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are types of projection, of seeing the issue 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 such a 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 effort to manage the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can only be forgiven or released or regarded 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 correct or change an individual or perhaps a self-image. Personal relationships may appear to sail happily along for awhile, the make-believe self-concept IS the private perspective and thus is definitely on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is a decision. The ego is a decision. Atonement is your choice that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your choice to trust that your head could be separate from God. Once your head 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’d thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The world was created up as a substitute 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 head constantly, “This world isn’t your Home. This world isn’t your Identity. This world isn’t real.” While 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 best of it and find something of the world to spot with. You are able to never return for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem becoming a substitute identity. The ego mind seems to be identified with your 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 typical part with this 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 issues that these images appear to be telling this little me appear to be really important. Praise thus seems very 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 great lover, you’re a great provider, you’re great with the children, you have a superb intellect, you have such a heart, you help serve so many other folks, you’re a great team-player, on and on). This part of the self-concept says that you are an individual and you have most of these positive attributes that actually allow you to a valuable and worthy person, that make 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 would be: you’re never as great as you believe you’re, you’re not such a good team player, such a good provider, so good in bed—all the things which can be taken as insults to the private 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 great threat, for the Holy Spirit contributes to the experience of forgiveness or the realization that none of the tiny images perceived as separate have any reality.
When the criticism seems to come, the ego attempts a substitution. It thinks, “I don’t need this. I’ll go elsewhere and start other relationships with people who will appreciate my talents and skills and abilities, appreciate my personhood. I will avoid those negative influences on the planet and those negative people. I’ll find another person or join friends where people 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 maintain a sense of specialness, a sense of separation, a sense of individuality (a private mind with private thoughts). Those attempts are special love relationships. They seem to strengthen 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 offer personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit suggests that past associations offer nothing of value, for they certainly were created by the ego to deny the reality of God’s Love.
Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and comes with an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. While the ego’s believed relationships will appear to be specific, yet every one will present a way 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 dsicover yourself. As you treat him you’ll treat yourself. As you think of him you’ll think of yourself. Always remember this, for in him you may find yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they’re given another chance at salvation. Don’t leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there with you, in remembrance of you.