Does A Course in Miracles Teach That I Require a Holy Relationship in Order to Awaken?

[Jhon Dolton]

I wish to ask you in what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one the main book it discusses "entering the ark" together, and it almost sounds as though you'll need another specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS might be the connection that reflects enlightenment in my experience, and I for them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you actually have to have another to help you awaken?

I appreciate your own time so much and many thanks for your help in my experience and others. I many thanks and I thank God for you. Namaste.

David Hoffmeister: Thanks for your openness and your willingness to look deeply at what is underneath these topics and issues. A Course in Miracles teaches that the split mind contains both the issue (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they're brought together, only One remains.

The human body and the world are always the focus of ego's perspective, for it seeks to create real problems and struggles on the planet 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 that it's 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 did actually arise. This one problem might be described as an authority problem or perhaps 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 make 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 believe I am in competition with God."

This is the beginning of training the mind to forgive, for the focus is brought back to the mind, back once again to thinking, and recinded from the human body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are types of projection, of seeing the issue where it is 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 this type of 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 endeavor to regulate the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can just only be forgiven or released or viewed as false—not fixed or controlled or changed.

Exactly the same ego dynamic is underneath interpersonal relationship struggles of power and control, of wanting to fix or change a person or perhaps a self-image. Personal relationships may seem to sail happily along for awhile, yet the make-believe self-concept IS the non-public 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 decision that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your decision to believe that the mind could be separate from God. Once the mind 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'd thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The entire world was created up instead identity. The sleeping mind is split on your decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, "This world isn't Identity. This world can be an illusion." And thus the Holy Spirit reminds the mind constantly, "This world isn't your Home. This world isn't your Identity. This world isn't 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 very best of it and find something of the world to identify with. You are able to never return back for God will punish you."

Thought-form associations seem to become a 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 a poor 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 all part of this construction acim youtube. The mind is very shaky about that small identity, this small self, this little me. So the little me is shaky, and it looks 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 things that these images be seemingly telling this little me be seemingly really important. Praise thus seems extremely 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 youngsters, you've a superb intellect, you've this type of heart, you help serve so many others, you're a good team-player, on and on). This aspect of the self-concept says that you're a person and you've many of these positive attributes that basically allow you to an invaluable and worthy person, that make 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 could be: you're never as great as you think you are, you're not this type of good team player, this type 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 this ego self-concept that believes both parties (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a good threat, for the Holy Spirit results in the knowledge 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 will appreciate my talents and skills and abilities, appreciate my personhood. I'll avoid those negative influences on the planet and those negative people. I'll find another individual or join an organization where folks are like-minded and neglect 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 a sense of specialness, a sense of separation, a sense 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 made 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. While the ego's believed relationships will be seemingly specific, yet each one of these will present a chance to release the belief in specifics. Divine Mind is Abstract and Universal. Forgiveness is 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 will dsicover 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 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.