Does A Course in Miracles Teach That I Desire a Holy Relationship in Order to Awaken?
I do want to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one single part of the book it discusses “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds like you will need another specific person in order to awaken. Therefore, I think I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could possibly be the relationship that reflects enlightenment to me, and I to them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really have to have another to assist you awaken?
I appreciate your own time so much and thank you for the help to me and others. I thank you and I thank God for you. Namaste.
David Hoffmeister: Thanks for the openness and your willingness to check deeply at what is underneath these topics and issues a course in miracles youtube channel. A Course in Miracles teaches that the split mind contains both the situation (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they are brought together, only One remains.
The body and the planet are usually the focus of ego’s perspective, for it seeks to produce real problems and struggles in the world and to steer clear of 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 produce 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 did actually arise. This one problem could possibly be described being an authority problem or a confusion in who’s the author of Reality. Your brain that believes in the fact of the time-space cosmos has a get a grip on issue, for it believes so it can produce itself. This ego mind also thinks it’s 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 an excellent example with this unveiling:
“A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am 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 types of projection, of seeing the situation where it’s 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 this kind of belief entails is then projected to the body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to control the script or the body, is an effort to control the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that days gone by can just only be forgiven or released or regarded as false—not fixed or controlled or changed.
The same ego dynamic is underneath interpersonal relationship struggles of power and control, of wanting to repair or change an individual or a self-image. Personal relationships might seem to sail happily along for awhile, the make-believe self-concept IS the private 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 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 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 created up instead identity. The sleeping mind is split on the decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world isn’t Identity. This world is 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.” As 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 identify with. You are able to never go back for God will punish you.”
Thought-form associations seem to become 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 brain is quite 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 different issues that these images be seemingly telling this little me be seemingly really important. Praise thus seems extremely 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 great lover, you’re a great provider, you’re great with the youngsters, you’ve an excellent intellect, you’ve this kind of heart, you help serve so many other folks, you’re a great team-player, on and on). This aspect of the self-concept says that you’re an individual and you’ve many of these positive attributes that actually allow you to an invaluable and worthy person, that produce you stick 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 this kind of good team player, this kind of good provider, so good in bed—everything which are taken as insults to the private self-concept). That’s the flip side of the strokes. To this ego self-concept that believes both parties (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a great threat, for the Holy Spirit contributes to the experience of forgiveness or the realization that none of the tiny images perceived as separate have any reality.
Once the criticism seems in the future, 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 in the world and those negative people. I’ll find another individual or join an organization where people are like-minded and forget about the remaining world. These new people should me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an effort 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 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 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. As the ego’s believed relationships will be seemingly specific, yet each one 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 will dsicover 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 discover 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.
