I wish to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In a single part of the 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 could possibly be the partnership that reflects enlightenment to 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 thank you for your help to me and others. I thank you and I thank God for you. Namaste.
David Hoffmeister: Thanks for your openness and your willingness to appear deeply at what is underneath these topics and issues teacher of teachers. 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.
The human body and the planet are always the focus of ego’s perspective, for this seeks to make real problems and struggles in the world and to steer clear of 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’s 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 1 problem could possibly be described being an authority problem or a confusion in who’s the author of Reality. Your brain that believes in the truth of the time-space cosmos has a get a grip on issue, for this believes so it can make 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 this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I’m in competition with God.”
That is the beginning of training the mind to forgive, for the focus is cut back to the mind, back once again to thinking, and recinded 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 brain cannot tolerate the belief in a war with God, which means this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue such a belief entails is then projected to the body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to control the script or the body, is an effort to control the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that the past can only just be forgiven or released or regarded as false—not fixed or controlled or changed.
The same ego dynamic is underneath interpersonal relationship struggles of power and control, of wanting to correct or change an individual or a self-image. Personal relationships may appear to sail happily along for awhile, yet the make-believe self-concept IS the non-public perspective and thus is definitely 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 trust that the mind could 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, because it believed it’d thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The planet was made up as a substitute 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 the mind 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 very best of it and find something of the planet to identify with. You are able to never return back for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem becoming a substitute identity. The ego mind is apparently 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 rich family, from an unhealthy family, I’m Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) Most of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the small personal self are typical part of this construction. Your brain is extremely shaky concerning this small identity, this small self, this little me. So the small me is shaky, and it looks 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 seem to be telling this little me seem to be really important. Praise thus seems essential (i.e., you are 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 an excellent intellect, you’ve such a heart, you help serve so many other people, you’re a good team-player, on and on). This facet of the self-concept says that you’re an individual and you’ve most of these positive attributes that actually allow you to a valuable and worthy person, which make you stick out 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 could be: you’re much less great as you think you are, you’re not such a good team player, such a good provider, so good in bed—all the things that 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 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’ll avoid those negative influences in the world and those negative people. I’ll find another person or join a group where people are like-minded and forget about the rest of the world. These new people should me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an effort to steadfastly keep up 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 seem to reinforce 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 implies that past associations offer nothing of value, for these were made 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. As the ego’s believed relationships will seem to be specific, yet each 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:
“Whenever 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’re given another chance at salvation. Don’t leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I’m always there with you, in remembrance of you.