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

I wish to ask you by what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one single area of the book it covers "entering the ark" together, and it almost sounds as though you will need another specific person in order to awaken acim teacher. Therefore, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could possibly be the partnership that reflects enlightenment in my experience, and I to them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you actually need another to assist you awaken?

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

David Hoffmeister: Thanks for the 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 issue (the ego) and the Solution (the Holy Spirit). When they're brought together, only One remains.

The body and the entire world are always the focus of ego's perspective, for it seeks to produce 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 item of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief that it is possible to produce 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 seemed to arise. This one problem could possibly be described as an authority problem or even a confusion in who is the writer of Reality. Your brain that believes in the truth of the time-space cosmos has a get a grip on issue, for it believes so it can cause 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 a great example with this unveiling:

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

This really 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 your body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are samples of projection, of seeing the issue where it's not: in the world. Your brain cannot tolerate the belief in a battle 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 regulate the script or your body, is an effort 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 fix or change an individual or even a self-image. Personal relationships may appear to sail happily along for awhile, yet 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 decision that ends all decisions, an acceptance of the changelessness of Mind. The ego is your decision to think that the mind may be separate from God. Once the mind believed so it had separated and built this time-space world, this time-space world of bodies became its substitute identity, as it believed it'd discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The planet was made up instead identity. The sleeping mind is split on your decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, "This world is not Identity. This world is an illusion." And thus the Holy Spirit reminds the mind 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 entire world to recognize with. You can never return back for God will punish you."

Thought-form associations seem becoming a substitute identity. The ego mind is apparently 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 unhealthy family, I'm Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.) All of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the small personal self are part with this construction. Your brain is very shaky about any of it small identity, this small self, this little me. So the small me is shaky, and it seems like 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 an individual and you're a good 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 a superb intellect, you've this type of heart, you help serve so many others, you're a great team-player, on and on). This part of the self-concept says that you will be an individual and you've many of these positive attributes that basically cause you to an invaluable and worthy person, which make you be noticeable 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 believe you're, you're not this type of good team player, this type of good provider, so good in bed—all the things which are taken as insults to the private self-concept). That's the flip side of the strokes. To the 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.

When 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'll avoid those negative influences in the world and those negative people. I'll find another individual or join friends where folks are like-minded and overlook the rest of the world. These new people will require to me and stroke me and praise me." The attempt at substitution is an effort to keep 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 bolster 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 give personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit demonstrates past associations offer nothing of value, for they certainly were created by the ego to deny the reality of God's Love.

Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and posseses an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. While the ego's believed relationships will be seemingly specific, yet each one of these will present an opportunity 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 will see yourself. As you treat him you'll treat yourself. As you consider him you'll consider yourself. Never forget this, for in him you may 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.