I want to ask you by what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one part of the book it covers “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds like you will need an added specific person in order to awaken acim teachers. Therefore, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could possibly be the partnership that reflects enlightenment to me, and I to them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really need another to assist you awaken?
I appreciate your time so much and many thanks for your help to me and others. I many thanks 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 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 entire world are usually 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 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. That one problem could possibly be described being an authority problem or perhaps a confusion in who’s mcdougal of Reality. Your brain that believes in the fact of the time-space cosmos has a get a handle on issue, because of it believes that it can produce itself. This ego mind also thinks it is 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 a great example of this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I’m in competition with God.”
That is the start of training your brain to forgive, for the focus is cut back to your brain, back again to thinking, and removed from the human body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are types of projection, of seeing the situation where it is 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 regulate the script or the human body, is an attempt to regulate the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that the past can only 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 correct or change an individual or perhaps a self-image. Personal relationships might seem 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 choice that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your choice to think that your brain can be separate from God. Once your brain 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’d thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The planet was created 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 can be 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.” 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 most effective of it and find something of the entire world to spot with. You can never go back for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem to become substitute identity. The ego mind appears to be identified with the human 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 undesirable 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 part of this construction. Your brain is extremely shaky about that 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 appear to be telling this little me appear to be really important. Praise thus seems essential (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 great lover, you’re a great provider, you’re great with the youngsters, you have an excellent intellect, you have such a heart, you help serve so many others, you’re a great team-player, on and on). This aspect of the self-concept says that you will be an individual and you have all of these positive attributes that really cause you to a valuable and worthy person, which 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 would be: you’re much less great as you think you are, you’re not such a good team player, such a good provider, so good in bed—all the things that are taken as insults to the personal self-concept). That’s the flip side of the strokes. To this ego self-concept that believes both sides (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a great 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.
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 can appreciate my talents and skills and abilities, appreciate my personhood. I will avoid those negative influences in the world and those negative people. I’ll find another person or join a group where folks are like-minded and overlook the remaining portion of the 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 a feeling of specialness, a feeling of separation, a feeling of individuality (a private mind with private thoughts). Those attempts are special love relationships. They appear 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 give personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit suggests that past associations offer nothing of value, for these were produced by the ego to deny the truth of God’s Love.
Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and has an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. While the ego’s believed relationships will appear 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 may be 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 might find yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Remember this, for in him you may 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.