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

I do want to ask you about what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one the main book it discusses "entering the ark" together, and it almost sounds like you need another specific person in order to awaken. Therefore, I do believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the connection that reflects enlightenment to me, and I for them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really need another to help you awaken?acim teacher

 

I appreciate your time so much and thank you for your help to me 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 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 usually the focus of ego's perspective, for it seeks to make real problems and struggles on the planet 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 it is possible to make an identity which God did not create. The ego is this identity problem and it absolutely was Answered or forgiven by the Holy Spirit the instant it appeared to arise. That one problem could be described as an authority problem or a confusion in who is the author of Reality. Your head that believes in the reality 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's in competition with God, although this really 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 of the unveiling:

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

That is the start of training your brain to forgive, for the focus is brought back to your brain, back again to thinking, and recinded from the body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are types of projection, of seeing the problem where it's not: in the world. Your head cannot tolerate the belief in a battle with God, so 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 regulate the script or the body, is an attempt to regulate the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear 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 correct or change an individual or a self-image. Personal relationships might 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 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 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, as it believed it had discarded the Kingdom of Heaven. The 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 can be 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." 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 recognize with. You are able to never return for God will punish you."

Thought-form associations seem to become a 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.) Many of these are thought-form associations. And these seeming other persons and places surrounding the little personal self are typical part of the construction. Your head is extremely shaky about this 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 the different things that these images be seemingly telling this little me be seemingly really important. Praise thus seems essential (i.e., you are 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 good lover, you're a good provider, you're great with the children, you've an excellent intellect, you've this kind of 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 an individual and you've most of these positive attributes that really cause you to an invaluable and worthy person, that 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 this kind of good team player, this kind of good provider, so good in bed—everything that 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 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 knowledge 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 are able to 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 someone else or join an organization where people are like-minded and neglect the remaining world. These new people will like me and stroke me and praise me." The attempt at substitution is an attempt to keep 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 seem 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 offer personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit demonstrates past associations offer nothing of value, for these were created by the ego to deny the truth of God's Love.

Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and comes with an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. As the ego's believed relationships will be seemingly 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 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 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'm always there with you, in remembrance of you.