Miracle
Relationship Yoga
A NEW YOGA OF
HOLY RELATIONSHIPS
Miracle Relationship Yoga is not a
form of a Christian Tantric Yoga and has no comparable counterpart in Hindu yoga, as there
is with
the other four aspects of Miracle Yoga. Classical yoga is focused upon
transcending
the physical world, overcoming individual existence, and becoming free
by
merging with God. Tantric Yoga holds the ideal of joining with God and
yet
returning to this world as jivanmukti, one who is
freed while living.
Some forms of Tantric Yoga include a sexual union between a man and
woman for
spiritual growth, but this is considered only a preliminary stage in
spiritual
growth. The more advanced stage of this outer sexual union is the
joining of
the male and female energy currents within the body of the individual
seeker
and the raising of the kundalini. But all kinds of yoga, even Tantric Yoga, see
meditation as the primary means of divine union and do not see
relationships as
a significant means of divine union.
One factor in the lack of relationships as a means of divine union in
Hindu
yoga is the way in which the individual is viewed in Vedanta. Your true
Self is
already joined with God and when you realize your true nature, you
return to
God and dissolve into God. There really is not much of an emphasis on
your
brotherhood either here or in heaven. Your relationship with God, your
identity
in God, is the most important relationship in Hindu yoga and so all the
means
of divine union are focused on the direct joining of the individual
with God.
In contrast to this viewpoint of Vedanta, the Course sees your Identity
as
existing both in God and in your brother. Your true Identity is in
relationship. You are still the Self, but this Christ Self is a shared
identity. In this shared identity you are a part of the Sonship and
still
experience the Wholeness of God as His Son. Seeking only God
realization as is
the case in Hindu yoga leaves out an important part of your true
Identity—your
brother in Christ, who shares your true Identity with you.
The ego is the idea of separation. It is the idea that you are alone.
Consequently, when you decide to seek God, the ego wants to take command
of your
search for God. The ego as the seeker then would be drawn to making
your search
be an expression of you separately seeking God. The Course says that
the ego is
willing to seek God because it will keep you running in circles with no
intention of you ever actually finding God. Of course, God can actually
be
found, but the road is usually a long and difficult path. The
Course
maintains there is another way that takes less time, is less difficult,
and is
a way of overcoming the ego. This overcoming of the ego does not have
to wait
until divine union ultimately occurs. You can overcome the ego’s idea
of
separation as your means of growing toward divine union.
The ego is only an idea in your mind, but it has power because you
believe in
it. Overcoming the ego means taking away your allegiance to the ego and
giving
your allegiance to something real that is beyond the ego. The ego is
the idea
that you are alone. The ego fosters the illusion that you are of
yourself.
The ego denies God as your Author and Creator and denies your brothers
who have
been created as part of you. But you are not of yourself; you are of
God and of
your brothers. Consequently, you must find yourself in God and in your
brothers.
The idea of a separate individual consciousness is also manufactured by
the ego
that wants to limit the mind to your body. But you are a mind in the
Mind of
God and your true mind is a shared mind with the Sonship, which is
another name
for the Christ Self that everyone shares. In fact your function in
heaven is to
share your mind, and this sharing is love and is your joy. Your ego
state of
mind that believes in a separate individual mind can be overcome by an
experience of joining your mind with the mind of another person. When
you join
your mind with another mind, you demonstrate to yourself that you are
not alone
and you demonstrate to the other person that he is not alone. This is
the
overcoming of the ego through relationship. A mind joined with another
mind
does lose its separateness, but it does not lose all of its individual
identity. A
joined mind finds its individual identity in relationship rather than
in
aloneness.
Some of the specific ways described in the Course of overcoming the ego’s idea of separation are forgiveness, Christ’s vision, and miracles. Another specific means of overcoming the ego is the holy relationship, which will be explained below. Miracle Relationship Yoga is the practice of forming holy relationships as a means of spiritual growth.
The Holy Spirit enters all holy relatonships and helps
partners see divine love and holiness in each other.
JOINING FOR A COMMON PURPOSE
The foundation of the holy relationship is having a common purpose. A
marriage can be a holy relationship, but any relationship based on a common
purpose with common interests would be a holy relationship. Two
people
having the same purpose is just the agreement to hold the same idea in
their
minds and to both seek that idea as a goal. Why would having a shared
idea of a
goal be so important that it could make a relationship holy?
To find the answer first consider how tangible things are shared. If
you and a
friend share a hundred dollars equally, you would each own fifty
dollars.
Consequently, the sharing of forms means divided ownership. But when
your
elementary school teacher shared the idea that two plus two equals
four, you
retained this idea and your teacher retained this same idea that was
given to
you. So in sharing an idea there is no loss to the giver or the
receiver.
Now consider how you choose to share ideas. If you are a body, much of
your
life is focused upon meeting your body’s needs, and then you use ideas
as a
means of getting what you as a body need and want. You have to decide
what your
personal interests are and then set goals to meet your individual needs
for
food, clothing, money, sex, recognition, and power. Your basic premise
is that
you are alone, and if you do not meet your needs nobody else will. You
see
yourself as different from others, and this is proven to you by your
different
body, personality, education, beliefs, and goals. Even when you enter
relationships you decide how your needs will be met in the
relationship. You
meet the needs of your partner in order to have your needs met. So you
have
special love relationships based upon a bargain that says you will meet
your
partner’s needs if your partner meets your needs. If your needs are not
being
met, you will decide it is a bad bargain and look at making changes.
But even if your apparent needs are met, you will not be satisfied
because you
will still feel a void in your life. The void is caused by not living a
life
that reflects who you are. Since you are a mind in the Mind of God
joined with
your brothers, your real need is to mirror this fact in your everyday
life to
remind you of who you are. This starts with the simple idea that you
have
common interests with your brother. The question posed above of how
a
shared idea of a goal can make a relationship holy can now be
addressed. If you
decide to join with a brother to accomplish a goal together, you have
done
something very radical. You are in this act entering holiness and
drastically
departing from your usual seeking of specialness.
However, to be a holy relationship your joining cannot be done as a
bargain to
get your separate needs met, otherwise you would just be participating
in
another special love relationship. Your joining must be for a common
purpose to
meet common needs. In your goal of meeting common needs together, you
are making
a recognition that you and your partner have common interests. If you
have
common interests and common needs, you must not be different after all.
You can
see yourself in your partner, and your partner can see himself in you.
Instead
of seeing differences, you are seeing how you are similar. You are
beginning to
see perhaps that you may be the same, just as you once saw in Heaven
that you
were a part of each other. A simple idea has brought back a forgotten
memory of
your Home together when you were aware of being joined in divine
oneness.
Furthermore, you are sharing an idea together. If you are a body, you
could not
share an idea, because bodies cannot share ideas. But if you are a
mind, and
indeed you are, then something wonderful has happened. You have come
Home in
your mind. In Heaven how did you share? God showed you how to love by
giving
all of Himself to you, and you shared yourself by giving all of
yourself to Him
and to all of your brothers. Just like the idea of two and two equaling
four
can be shared without any loss to the giver or receiver, you could
share
yourself in Heaven as a divine idea and only gain by sharing and never
lose by
sharing. In fact, you left Heaven by stopping your sharing of yourself
completely. You wanted to become an individual consciousness, a private
mind.
This is the source of the void in you. But the holy relationship can
begin to
heal this void. If you can find just one brother to share your mind in
a common
purpose, you prove to yourself that your mind does not have to be
private. This
sharing of a common purpose affects your ego-based idea of yourself.
The ego believes
it is completely on its own, which is merely another way of describing
how it
thinks it originated. This is such a fearful state that it can only
turn to
other egos and try to unite with them in a feeble attempt at
identification, or
attack them in an equally feeble show of strength. It is not free,
however, to
open the premise to question, because the premise is its foundation.
The ego is
the mind’s belief that it is completely on its own.1
The ego is the
thought that you are alone, but by sharing a common purpose you
demonstrate
that you are no longer alone. In this overcoming of aloneness you are
overcoming the ego. In order to understand the ramifications of sharing
of a
common purpose, it is helpful to consider what setting any significant
goal means
to you. A goal is something you are seeking and want. If the goal is
important
to you, you will dedicate your efforts, time, and loving attention
toward
accomplishing the goal. If you really want the goal, your mind will
direct its
thoughts toward the goal and your actions will be expressions of moving
in the
direction of the goal. You will begin to define yourself in terms of
the goal.
The goal will give meaning to your life. The ego is meaningless, so a
life with
meaning overcomes the ego.
However, the goal of a holy relationship is not a solitary goal, but rather a
common
purpose. You and another person are moving in the same direction to the
same
goal together with joined interests. You are not doing this for
yourself alone,
but for both of you. This is not a bargain based upon separate
interests,
because you and your partner are giving yourself to this purpose as a
joint
effort motivated by common interests. Since you are doing this
together, you
direct your mind and actions toward this common purpose along with your
partner. Because your partner is traveling with you along the same path
to the
same destination for a shared purpose, you and your partner have both
gained
and neither has lost. You have shared not only the idea, but you also
shared in the
togetherness itself.
Just as any goal becomes a way of defining yourself, the sharing of a
common
goal becomes a way of redefining yourself in terms of your partner. You
begin
to see your identity as a joined identity, rather than as an isolated
identity.
Your isolated identity is the ego. Your belief in the ego makes you
believe
that your life is defined by isolation. The existence of the ego
depends on
maintaining separation. The ego wants you to believe that you are the
ego and
your life, indeed your very existence, depends on maintaining
separation. The
ego’s plan is to keep you believing in isolation, but when you share a
common
purpose with someone, you prove to yourself that you are not isolated.
The
dominance of your ego identity is replaced by the beginnings of a
joined
identity, which is a reflection of your true nature as a joined
identity in the
Sonship.
Does the common purpose have to be an overtly spiritual purpose? No.
When you
first join it can be for any common purpose as long as you have the
correct
motivation. If you are joined on the form level to do a common purpose
together, but you are joined to meet separate needs, it
will not be a holy
relationship. You and a business partner can start a business with each
of you
having the purpose of making money. If you are in the business to make
money
for yourself and your partner is in the business to make money for
himself, you
both have the same purpose of making money. However, you have the same
purpose
separately to meet separate needs and not a common purpose to meet
common
needs.
Can you change a special love relationship into a holy relationship
simply by
changing your own mind about the purpose of the relationship without
your
partner changing his mind too? If only one partner sees a common
purpose and
common interests, it is not a holy relationship. A common misconception
of
Course principles is to think that the holy relationship can be within
your own
mind only. If it is within your own mind only, you are still alone. In
fact, the
holy relationship is a demonstration that your apparently private mind
is not
private after all. The holy relationship is a joining of minds and
therefore
must be experienced in both minds simultaneously. To be a relationship,
there
has to be relating between two minds acting as one in purpose. It is
this link
between minds that makes it holy and recalls to your mind and your
partner’s
mind your place together in the Sonship.
This joining of minds occurs in the long-term holy relationships, but
you will
also experience this joining of minds in temporary holy relationships.
For
example, a temporary holy relationship is manifested when true
forgiveness
happens. When true forgiveness takes place, two people join and have a
temporary common purpose of healing. Forgiveness produces a mutual
healing in
both participants.
The Course is
often thought of
only as a means of encouraging you to forgive and change your own
perceptions
in order to see the world, your brothers, and your life differently.
Forgiveness in traditional Christianity is usually seen as an act that
you
carry out in your mind in which you forgive your brother for his sins.
It is a
gift that you bestow on your brother for what he has really done to
you. Then
in the Course you learn that you forgive your brother by perceiving him
as
being sinless. You do this by seeing that his apparent sins produced no
true
effect on you, since you are a holy Son of God. This shows your brother
that
the sins, having no effect, must be unreal. Since his sins had no
effect, your
brother has no cause for guilt and, of course, you have no cause for
guilt
either. This undoing of sins reveals that sins are merely mistakes that
have
been corrected.
Forgiveness
is not real unless it
brings a healing to your brother and yourself. You must attest his sins
have no
effect on you to demonstrate they are not real. How else could he be
guiltless?
And how could his innocence be justified unless his sins have no effect
to
warrant guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just because they would
entail
effects that cannot be undone and overlooked entirely. In their undoing
lies
the proof that they are merely errors. Let yourself be healed that you
may be
forgiving, offering salvation to your brother and yourself.2
When two
people join to create a holy relationship with a common purpose, a holy
instant
occurs in which the Holy Spirit enters the relationship. Although the
partners
of a holy relationship can join on any common purpose, the Holy Spirit
introduces His purpose into the relationship—the purpose of holiness
itself.
The Holy Spirit helps the partners to see divine love and holiness in each other
and gives
the gift of Christ’s vision that allows holiness to be seen.
- 2. T-27.II.4:1-7, p. 528-529
Memory Walk in the Light:
My Christian Yoga Life as
"A Course in Miracles"
Author:
Donald James
Giacobbe
“The central message of the Course
is forgiveness, and the key to yoga is opening to the divine presence.
As a
teacher of Miracle Yoga based on Course principles, my goal is to live
my life
as an expression of forgiveness and openness to the experience of
Spirit.”
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