I want to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one area of the book it discusses “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you need another specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the relationship that reflects enlightenment in my experience, 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 in my experience 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 a course in miracles teacher. 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 world are usually the focus of ego’s perspective, for it seeks to create real problems and struggles on earth and to avoid the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit. The ego’s distorted world is the item of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief it is possible to create an identity which God didn’t create. The ego is this identity problem and it absolutely 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 even a confusion in who is mcdougal of Reality. Your brain that believes in the reality of the time-space cosmos has a get a handle on issue, for it believes that it can make 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 an excellent example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I believe I’m in competition with God.”
This really is the start of training the mind to forgive, for the focus is brought back to the mind, back again to thinking, and taken away from the human body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are examples of projection, of seeing the situation where it’s not: in the world. Your brain cannot tolerate the belief in a war with God, so this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue such a 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 attempt to control the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can just 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 correct or change a person or even a self-image. Personal relationships might seem to sail happily along for awhile, yet the make-believe self-concept IS the non-public perspective and thus is always 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 think that the mind may be separate from God. Once the mind believed that it had separated and built this time-space world, this time-space world of bodies became its substitute identity, as it believed it had thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The entire world 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 is 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 most effective of it and find something of the world to recognize with. You can never return for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem to become a substitute identity. The ego mind appears 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 rich 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 brain is quite 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 different issues that these images appear to be telling this little me appear to be 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 good lover, you’re a good provider, you’re great with the children, you have an excellent intellect, you have such a heart, you help serve so many others, you’re a good team-player, on and on). This aspect of the self-concept says that you’re a person and you have all of these positive attributes that basically make you an invaluable and worthy person, that produce you be noticeable 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 much less great as you believe you are, you’re not such a good team player, such a 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 sides (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a good threat, for the Holy Spirit results in 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 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 a group where people are like-minded and overlook the rest of the world. These new people should me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an attempt 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 appear to bolster worth and value and to validate personhood. And they offer 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 these were created 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. As 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 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 really a holy encounter. As you see him you will see 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 will discover 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’m always there with you, in remembrance of you.