I want to ask you about 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 one other specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the connection 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 thank you for your help if you ask 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’s underneath these topics and issues a course in miracles teachers. 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.
The body and the planet are always the focus of ego’s perspective, for this seeks to make 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 it is 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 did actually arise. This one problem could be described being an authority problem or a confusion in who is the author of Reality. Your head that believes in the reality 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 an excellent example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I’m in competition with God.”
This is the start of training your head to forgive, for the focus is brought back to your head, back once again 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 situation where it’s not: in the world. Your head cannot tolerate the belief in a war with God, and this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue this kind of 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 the past can just only be forgiven or released or seen 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 a person or 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 definitely 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 head could be separate from God. Once your head believed so it had separated and built this time-space world, this time-space world of bodies became its substitute identity, since it believed it’d discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The planet was made up as a substitute identity. The sleeping mind is split on the decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world isn’t Identity. This world can be an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds your head constantly, “This world isn’t your Home. This world isn’t your Identity. This world isn’t real.” While 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 planet to recognize with. You can never return 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 wealthy 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 little personal self are typical part with this construction. Your head is extremely shaky about that small identity, this small self, this little me. So the little me is shaky, and it seems 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 different things that these images appear to be telling this little me appear to be really important. Praise thus seems very 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 kids, you’ve a superb intellect, you’ve this kind of 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 a person and you’ve all of these positive attributes that actually allow you to a valuable and worthy person, that make 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 not as great as you think you are, you’re not this kind of good team player, this kind of 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 leads to the knowledge of forgiveness or the realization that none of the tiny images perceived as separate have any reality.
When 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 is able to 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 individual or join friends where folks are like-minded and forget about 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 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 give you 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 they certainly were created by the ego to deny the truth 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 appear to be specific, yet each one will present a way 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:
“Once you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will dsicover yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you consider him you will consider yourself. Always remember this, for in him you will find 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.