I want to ask you about what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In a single the main book it covers "entering the ark" together, and it almost sounds like you'll need another specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS might 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'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're brought together, only One remains.



The body and the planet are always the focus of ego's perspective, for it seeks to make real problems and struggles on the planet and to prevent the inner Healing Correction of the Holy Spirit. a course in miracles youtube The ego's distorted world is the item of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief it is possible to make an identity which God did not 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 might be described as an authority problem or a confusion in who is the writer of Reality. The mind that believes in the truth of the time-space cosmos has a get a grip on issue, for it believes that it can produce itself. This ego mind also thinks it is 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 of this unveiling:


"A meaningless world engenders fear because I do believe I am in competition with God."



That is the beginning of training your brain to forgive, for the focus is brought back to your brain, back once again to thinking, and recinded from your body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are types of projection, of seeing the problem where it is not: in the world. The mind cannot tolerate the belief in a war with God, and this belief is pushed out of awareness. The deep-seated control issue this type of belief entails is then projected to your body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to control the script or your body, is an endeavor to control the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can just only be forgiven or released or seen 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 a person or a self-image. Personal relationships might appear 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 a decision. The ego is a decision. Atonement is your choice that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your choice to trust 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, because it believed it'd discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The entire world was created up as an alternative identity. The sleeping mind is split on your choice of identity. The Holy Spirit says, "This world is not Identity. This world is definitely 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 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 planet to recognize with. You can never return back for God will punish you."



Thought-form associations seem to become substitute identity. The ego mind seems to be identified with your 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 wealthy family, from an undesirable 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 typical part of this construction. The mind is very shaky about 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 the different things that these images be seemingly telling this little me be seemingly really important. Praise thus seems essential (i.e., you're 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 great lover, you're a great provider, you're great with the children, you have an excellent intellect, you have this type of heart, you help serve so many other people, you're a great team-player, on and on). This part of the self-concept says that you're a person and you have all of these positive attributes that basically allow you to an invaluable and worthy person, which make you stick out above the crowd. You're not merely anyone—you're somebody special. The flip side is criticism, which directly reflects the shaky sense of self. Criticism could be: you're not as great as you think you're, you're not this type of good team player, this type of good provider, so good in bed—everything which can be taken as insults to the private 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 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 the planet and those negative people. I'll find someone else or join an organization where folks are like-minded and neglect the remaining portion of the world. These new people will like 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 reinforce worth and value and to validate personhood. And they provide a false witness for clinging to the ego as identity. To the ego, past associations serve to provide personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit suggests that past associations offer nothing of value, for they certainly were produced by the ego to deny the facts 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 be seemingly 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:



"When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you might find yourself. As you treat him you'll treat yourself. As you consider him you'll 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. Don't leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there with you, in remembrance of you.