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I want to ask you about what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one single the main book it covers "entering the ark" together, and it almost sounds as though you 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 relationship that reflects enlightenment in my experience, and I in their mind! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you actually need another to help you awaken?
I appreciate your time so much and many thanks for the help in my experience and others. I many 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 situation (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they're brought together, only One remains.
Your body and the world are always the focus of ego's perspective, because of it seeks to create real problems and struggles in the world and to prevent 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 is possible to create 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 seemed to arise. This 1 problem could possibly be described being an authority problem or even a confusion in who's the author of Reality. Your brain that believes in the reality of the time-space cosmos has a get a handle on issue, because of it believes that it can cause itself. This ego mind also thinks it is in competition with God, although this is pushed out of conscious awareness. acim teacher 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 is the beginning of training the mind to forgive, for the focus is brought back to the mind, back again to thinking, and removed from your body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are samples of projection, of seeing the situation 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 your body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to manage the script or your body, is an endeavor to manage the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that the past 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 even a self-image. Personal relationships may appear 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 decision that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your decision to believe that the mind could 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 discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The world was made up as a substitute identity. The sleeping mind is split on your decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, "This world is not Identity. This world is definitely 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." While 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 very best of it and find something of the 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 appears to be identified with your 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 rich 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 of the construction. Your brain is extremely shaky relating to this small identity, this small self, this little me. So the little me is shaky, and it appears as though 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 different things that these images seem to be telling this little me seem to be really important. Praise thus seems very important (i.e., you're 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 a fine 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 are a person and you have many 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 only anyone—you're somebody special. The flip side is criticism, which directly reflects the shaky sense of self. Criticism could be: you're not as great as you think you're, you're not such a good team player, such a good provider, so good in bed—all the stuff which can be taken as insults to the personal 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 to come, 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 in the world and those negative people. I'll find someone else or join friends where individuals 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 a sense of specialness, a sense of separation, a sense of individuality (a private mind with private thoughts). Those attempts are special love relationships. They appear 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 provide personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit shows that past associations offer nothing of value, for these were created by the ego to deny the facts of God's Love.
Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and comes with an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. While the ego's believed relationships will seem 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:
"Whenever you meet anyone, remember it is really 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 discover 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 am always there with you, in remembrance of you.
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