I do want to ask you about what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one single area of the book it discusses “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds like you will need one other specific person in order to awaken. Therefore, I 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 really need to have another to assist you awaken?
I appreciate your own 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’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’re brought together, only One remains.
The body and the world are always the focus of ego’s perspective, for this seeks to create real problems and struggles on earth and to avoid the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit acim free resources. The ego’s distorted world is the merchandise 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 seemed to arise. This one problem might be described as an authority problem or even 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 handle on issue, for this believes that 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 an excellent example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I believe I’m in competition with God.”
This is the beginning of training the mind to forgive, for the focus is cut back to the mind, back again to thinking, and recinded from the human body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are examples of projection, of seeing the issue where it is not: in the world. Your brain cannot tolerate the belief in a battle 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 human body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to manage the script or the human body, is an attempt to manage the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can only just be forgiven or released or viewed 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 repair or change an individual or even 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 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 trust 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, since it believed it’d thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The entire world was made up instead identity. The sleeping mind is split on your decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world isn’t Identity. This world is 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 most effective of it and find something of the world to recognize with. You are able to never go back 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 wealthy family, from an unhealthy family, I’m Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) Many of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the little personal self are all part with this construction. Your brain is very shaky about this 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 very important (i.e., you’re an individual and you’re a great 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 a superb intellect, you have such a heart, you help serve so many others, you’re a good team-player, on and on). This part of the self-concept says that you will be an individual and you have all of these positive attributes that actually allow you to an invaluable and worthy person, that make you stand 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 could be: you’re much less great as you believe you’re, you’re not such a good team player, such a good provider, so good in bed—everything which can be 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 parties (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a good threat, for the Holy Spirit results in the ability 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 will appreciate my talents and skills and abilities, appreciate my personhood. I’ll avoid those negative influences on earth and those negative people. I’ll find another person or join a group where folks are like-minded and overlook the remaining world. These new people will require to 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 seem to strengthen 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 shows 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. 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 may 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 just a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you’ll treat yourself. As you consider him you’ll consider yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will see yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they’re given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I’m always there with you, in remembrance of you.