Does A Course in Miracles Teach That I Need a Holy Relationship in Order to Awaken?
I do want to ask you by 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’ll need another 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 connection that reflects enlightenment in my experience, and I for them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really have to have another to help you awaken?
I appreciate your time so much and thank you for your help in my experience and others. I thank you 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 videos. 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 usually the focus of ego’s perspective, because of it seeks to create real problems and struggles on earth and to steer clear of the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit. The ego’s distorted world is the item of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief that it’s possible to create an identity which God didn’t create. The ego is this identity problem and it had been Answered or forgiven by the Holy Spirit the instant it did actually arise. This one problem could possibly be described being an authority problem or even a confusion in who is the author of Reality. The mind that believes in the truth of the time-space cosmos has a get a grip on issue, because of it believes that 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 an excellent example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I am in competition with God.”
This is the beginning of training your head to forgive, for the focus is cut back to your head, back once again to thinking, and recinded 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. The mind cannot tolerate the belief in a war 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 manage the script or the body, is an attempt to manage the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that the past can 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 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 always on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is really a decision. The ego is really a decision. Atonement is the decision that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is the decision to think that your head can be separate from God. Once your head 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 had discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The entire world was made up as a substitute 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 head constantly, “This world is not your Home. This world is not your Identity. This world is not 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 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 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 rich family, from an unhealthy family, I’m Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) Most of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the small personal self are part with this construction. The mind is extremely shaky relating to this small identity, this small self, this little me. So the small me is shaky, and it appears as though 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 different items that these images seem to be telling this little me seem to be really important. Praise thus seems very important (i.e., you are a person 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 an excellent intellect, you have such a heart, you help serve so many other folks, you’re a good team-player, on and on). This part of the self-concept says that you’re a person and you have most of these positive attributes that really allow you to an invaluable 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 not as great as you think you are, 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 this 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 ability of forgiveness or the realization that none of the tiny images perceived as separate have any reality.
Once 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 are able to 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 someone else or join friends where people are like-minded and overlook the remaining portion of the world. These new people will like me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an attempt to keep 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 seem to strengthen 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 demonstrates past associations offer nothing of value, for they were created by the ego to deny the reality 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 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 may 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 really a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you consider him you will consider yourself. Never forget 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 am always there with you, in remembrance of you.