I do want to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one part of the book it talks about “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you’ll need an added specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the connection that reflects enlightenment in my experience, and I in their mind! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really need to have another to help you awaken?
I appreciate your time so much and many thanks for your help in my experience 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 problem (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they are brought together, only One remains.
Your body and the world are usually the focus of ego’s perspective, for this seeks to produce real problems and struggles on earth and to avoid 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 produce an identity which God did not create acim. The ego is this identity problem and it was Answered or forgiven by the Holy Spirit the instant it appeared to arise. That one problem could be described being an authority problem or even a confusion in who is mcdougal of Reality. Your head that believes in the reality of the time-space cosmos has a control issue, for this believes so it can make itself. This ego mind also thinks it’s 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 a fantastic example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I believe I am in competition with God.”
That 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 problem 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 such a belief entails is then projected to the body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to regulate the script or the body, is an endeavor to regulate the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that days gone by can only just 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 an individual or even a self-image. Personal relationships may seem to sail happily along for awhile, the make-believe self-concept IS the non-public perspective and thus is always on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is a decision. The ego is a decision. Atonement is the decision that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is the decision to trust that your brain could be separate from God. Once your brain 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 an alternative identity. The sleeping mind is split on the decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world is not Identity. This world is 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.” Whilst 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 identify with. You can never return for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem becoming a 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 an unhealthy 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 part with this construction. Your head is very 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 different issues that these images seem to be telling this little me seem to be really important. Praise thus seems very important (i.e., you are 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’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 will be an individual and you’ve all of these positive attributes that basically allow you to a valuable and worthy person, that make you be noticeable 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 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 stuff 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 parties (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a good 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.
When the criticism seems ahead, 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 earth and those negative people. I’ll find another individual or join friends where folks are like-minded and overlook the remaining portion of the world. These new people should me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an endeavor to maintain 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 reinforce 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 they were made 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 seem to be specific, yet each one of these will present a way 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 a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget 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.