I 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 as though you’ll need an added specific person to be able to awaken. Therefore, I think I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could possibly be the connection that reflects enlightenment to me, and I to them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really need to have another to assist you awaken?

I appreciate your time so much and thanks for the help to me and others. I thanks and I thank God for you. Namaste.

David Hoffmeister: Thanks for the openness and your willingness to look deeply at what’s underneath these topics and issues acim. 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.

Your body and the world are usually the focus of ego’s perspective, for it seeks to create real problems and struggles in the world and to avoid 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 did not create. The ego is this identity problem and it had been 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. The mind that believes in the reality of the time-space cosmos has a get a handle on issue, for it believes that it can make itself. This ego mind also thinks it is 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 of the unveiling:

“A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I’m in competition with God.”

This is the beginning of training your head to forgive, for the focus is brought back to your head, back again to thinking, and recinded from your body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are examples of projection, of seeing the situation where it is not: in the world. The mind 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 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 correct or change a person or even 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 definitely on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is just a decision. The ego is just 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 your head may be separate from God. Once your head 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 world 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 definitely an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds your head constantly, “This world is not your Home. This world is not your Identity. This world is not real.” As 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 best of it and find something of the world to recognize 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 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 rich family, from a poor 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 part of the construction. The mind is quite shaky concerning 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 different items 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 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 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 aspect of the self-concept says that you will be a person and you have most of these positive attributes that really allow you to a valuable and worthy person, which 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 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 parties (the positive and negative) of thinking are real, the Holy Spirit is perceived as a great 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 will 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 someone else or join a group where folks are like-minded and forget about the remaining world. These new people will require to me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an effort to maintain 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 strengthen 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 offer personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit shows 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 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 just a holy encounter. As you see him you will dsicover yourself. As you treat him you’ll treat yourself. As you think of him you’ll think of 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’m always there with you, in remembrance of you.