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

I wish to ask you by what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one part of the book it covers “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you’ll need another specific person in order to awaken. Therefore acim youtube channel, I believe I approach each new person with the expectation that maybe THIS could be the partnership that reflects enlightenment to me, and I to them! Am I taking this too literally? Or do you really need to have another to help you awaken?

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 appear deeply at what is underneath these topics and issues. 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.

The body and the planet 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 merchandise of identity confusion, an outpicturing of the belief that it’s possible to produce 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. This one problem could be described as an authority problem or even a confusion in who is the author of Reality. Your brain that believes in the fact of the time-space cosmos has a control issue, for it believes that it can create 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 believe I am in competition with God.”

This is the beginning of training your brain to forgive, for the focus is cut back to your brain, back again to thinking, and taken away from the human body and the world. Anorexia, weight issues, body image issues, and interpersonal relationship issues are examples of projection, of seeing the situation where it’s not: in the world. Your brain 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 the human body and the world. Weight control, like any attempt to manage the script or the human body, is an effort to manage the past. The Holy Spirit teaches that yesteryear can 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 repair or change a person or even a self-image. Personal relationships might seem to sail happily along for awhile, yet the make-believe self-concept IS the personal perspective and thus is always on shaky ground. Decisions are continuous. The Holy Spirit is really a decision. The ego is really 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 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, since it believed it had thrown away the Kingdom of Heaven. The entire world was made up as a substitute identity. The sleeping mind is split on your decision of identity. The Holy Spirit says, “This world isn’t Identity. This world is definitely an illusion.” And thus the Holy Spirit reminds your brain constantly, “This world isn’t your Home. This world isn’t your Identity. This world isn’t 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 best of it and find something of the planet to recognize with. You can never go back for God will punish you.”

Thought-form associations seem becoming a substitute identity. The ego mind seems to be identified with the human 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 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 small personal self are typical part with this construction. Your brain is quite shaky about that small identity, this small self, this little me. So the small me is shaky, and it looks 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 various things that these images seem to be telling this little me seem to be really important. Praise thus seems very 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 children, you’ve a fine intellect, you’ve this type of heart, you help serve so many other folks, you’re a good team-player, on and on). This aspect of the self-concept says that you will be a person and you’ve most of these positive attributes that basically cause you to an invaluable and worthy person, that produce you stand out above the crowd. You’re not only anyone—you’re somebody special. The flip side is criticism, which directly reflects the shaky sense of self. Criticism will be: you’re not 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 stuff which can be taken as insults to the personal 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 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 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’ll avoid those negative influences in the world and those negative people. I’ll find someone else or join an organization where people are like-minded and forget about the rest of the world. These new people will like me and stroke me and praise me.” The attempt at substitution is an effort to keep up a feeling of specialness, a feeling of separation, a feeling of individuality (a private mind with private thoughts). Those attempts are special love relationships. They appear to strengthen 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 provide personhood some sense of stability and consistency and value. Yet, the Holy Spirit shows that past associations offer nothing of value, for they were made by the ego to deny the truth of God’s Love.

Holy relationship emphasizes and reflects Content (right-minded thinking) and posseses an awareness of the meaninglessness of form. As the ego’s believed relationships will seem to be specific, yet each one of these will present a chance 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 really 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 see yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are 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.

I wish to ask you by what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one part of the book it covers “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you’ll need another specific person in order to awaken. Therefore acim youtube channel, I believe I approach each new person with the…

I wish to ask you by what A Course in Miracles means by Holy Relationship. In one part of the book it covers “entering the ark” together, and it almost sounds as though you’ll need another specific person in order to awaken. Therefore acim youtube channel, I believe I approach each new person with the…