I do want to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In a single part of the book it discusses “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds like you will need an added specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I do 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 actually need to have another to assist 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 look deeply at what’s underneath these topics and issues. A Course in Miracles teaches that the split mind contains both the issue (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they are brought together, only One remains.
The human body and the world are usually the focus of ego’s perspective, for it seeks to produce 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 a course in miracles, an outpicturing of the belief that it’s possible to produce 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 could possibly be described being an authority problem or 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 handle on issue, for it believes that it can cause 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 fantastic example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I am in competition with God.”
This is the beginning of training your brain to forgive, for the focus is cut back to your brain, back to thinking, and removed from the body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are samples of projection, of seeing the issue where it’s not: in the world. Your head cannot tolerate the belief in a battle with God, which means this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue this type of belief entails is then projected to the body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to manage the script or the body, is an endeavor to manage the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that days gone by can only be forgiven or released or regarded 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 a self-image. Personal relationships might seem to sail happily along for awhile, the make-believe self-concept IS the personal perspective and thus is obviously 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 your brain can be separate from God. Once your brain believed that it had separated and built this time-space world, this time-space world of bodies became its substitute identity, since it believed it had discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The planet was created up as an alternative identity. The sleeping mind is split on your choice of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world is not Identity. This world can be an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds your brain constantly, “This world is not your Home. This world is not your Identity. This world is not 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 most effective of it and find something of the 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 seems to be identified with the 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 a poor family, I’m Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) All 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 very shaky about any of it small identity, this small self, this little me. So the small me is shaky, and it appears as though 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 appear to be telling this little me appear to be really important. Praise thus seems essential (i.e., you are a person and you’re a great 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 facet of the self-concept says that you are a person and you have all of these positive attributes that basically cause you to an invaluable and worthy person, which 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 would be: you’re not 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—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 contributes to the ability 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 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 someone else or join a group where people 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 steadfastly 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 seem to strengthen 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 demonstrates past associations offer nothing of value, for they were produced by the ego to deny the reality of God’s Love.
Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and has an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. While 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 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 really a holy encounter. As you see him you might find 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 may find 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.