I do want to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one the main book it talks about “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you will need an added specific person in order to awaken. Therefore, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS might be the partnership that reflects enlightenment if you ask me, and I for them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you actually need to have another to help you awaken?
I appreciate your 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 appear deeply at what is underneath these topics and issues acim videos. A Course in Miracles teaches that the split mind contains both the situation (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they are brought together, only One remains.
The human body and the entire world are always the focus of ego’s perspective, because of it seeks to make real problems and struggles on earth 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 that it’s possible to make an identity which God did not create. The ego is this identity problem and it had been Answered or forgiven by the Holy Spirit the instant it did actually arise. That one problem might be described being an authority problem or 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, because of it believes so it can cause 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 of the unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I am in competition with God.”
This really is the start of training the mind to forgive, for the focus is cut back to the mind, back once again to thinking, and taken away from the human body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are types of projection, of seeing the situation where it is not: in the world. Your head cannot tolerate the belief in a battle with God, so this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue this type 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 endeavor to control the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that days gone by can 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 fix or change an individual or a self-image. Personal relationships may seem to sail happily along for awhile, yet the make-believe self-concept IS the personal 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 decision that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your decision to think that the mind can 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 discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The world was made up as an alternative identity. The sleeping mind is split on your decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world isn’t Identity. This world can be an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds the mind constantly, “This world isn’t your Home. This world isn’t your Identity. This world isn’t 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 best of it and find something of the entire world to spot with. You can never return back for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem becoming a substitute identity. The ego mind is apparently identified with the human 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 wealthy family, from a poor family, I’m Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) Most of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the little personal self are all part of the construction. Your head is quite shaky about that small identity, this small self, this little me. So the little me is shaky, and it looks 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 various 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 great lover, you’re a great provider, you’re great with the kids, you have a superb intellect, you have this type 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 an individual and you have many of these positive attributes that basically 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 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 are taken as insults to the personal 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 leads to the experience of forgiveness or the realization that none of the tiny images perceived as separate have any reality.
When 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 folks are like-minded and neglect the remaining world. These new people will like me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an endeavor to keep up 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 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 provide personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit implies that past associations offer nothing of value, for they were produced by the ego to deny the facts of God’s Love.
Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and posseses an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. Whilst the ego’s believed relationships will appear to be specific, yet each one of these will present an opportunity to release the belief in specifics. Divine Mind is Abstract and Universal. Forgiveness is 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 dsicover yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Always remember this, for in him you will see yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are 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.