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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 9. 3-7-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 9
9 Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. You can teach the way to Him and learn it, if you follow the Teacher Who knows the way to Him and understands His curriculum for learning it. The curriculum is totally unambiguous, because the goal is not divided and the means and the end are in complete accord. You need offer only undivided attention. Everything else will be given you. For you really want to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the decision of God’s Son. His learning is as unlimited as he is.

Journal
Of myself I can do nothing, but I am not of myself. I am of God and I have His Voice to lead me out of this interesting and awful story. I can teach as I learn and learn as I teach as long as I use my Guide, listen to His Voice and give Him my thoughts to be purified, corrected and sometimes just removed. There is no limit to my potential and I will follow my teacher to God.

I know this is true. I know the ego mind is a confused jumble of untrue thoughts. I know I am rapidly loosing interest in what it thinks it knows. I am very good at being vigilant for my thoughts, and always sooner rather than later, I will ask for healing. What is there left for me to do? I see a couple of ideas that I still need to practice.

I know that it is absolutely necessary that I have only one goal. As long as there are two goals in my mind, I am maintaining the split that is the ego. I know this but I still need to practice it. It is entirely too easy for me to pick up another goal and believe it is important, maybe even necessary. So this is something the Holy Spirit is helping me to be vigilant for. As soon as I see I have done this, I change my mind. This is my practice.

The other idea that needs my practice is that I divide my attention. I still listen to the ego sometimes rather than Spirit. Again, this is something that I am willing to let go. It seems harder for some reason. The ego mind chatters incessantly and eventually it chatters on about something that interests me. But I am learning to disregard it.

What seems to be helping me in this is to relax and allow and trust. I relax around my errors, I allow them to be healed and I trust that I am doing this and will succeed in spite of what are sometimes appearances to the contrary. Sometimes I want to question the Holy Spirit as to why I am not given more help.

The reason for this lack of trust is because I get constricted around my seeming failures and start to believe in them more than I believe in my Self. When this happens I realize that I am not being singular in my teacher or my goal. I relax again, quiet my mind, and wait for the comfort and the guidance that always comes.

© 2016, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 8. 3-4-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 8
8 You who have tried to learn what you do not want should take heart, for although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous if you look at it. Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not to attain it? Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. But it is not so yet, and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it up is reversed.

Journal
Our mind is split between God and ego, and as we use ego mind we are unable to learn or teach, because the ego mind has an absolute rule, that is, to seek and not find. So whatever I try to learn through the ego will inevitably fail, as will my efforts to teach. The part of my mind that is God can and will succeed in teaching and learning because it is not conflicted in its goal. All that is needed from me to be a successful learner and a successful teacher is that I listen to God only. With practice I have learned that I can do this, and doing it has taught me that I want to do it.

As part of my practice of learning to listen to only the God part of my mind, I have become very good at being vigilant for my thoughts. Yesterday, I was very aware of how the ego attempts to keep my attention and thus perpetuate the separation idea. First it gives me a problem. It attempts to disrupt the peace of my mind with either a possible future problem, or a regretful past.

If I am interested, that is if this thought triggers a belief in my mind, I think there is really a problem that needs to be solved. Then the ego attempts to give me a solution to the problem. The solution will not work, of course, because the problem is the goal, not the solution. This plays over and over in the mind. I have no idea if I can stop the ego attempts, but I can stop believing in them. I can stop listening to the ego by listening to the Holy Spirit instead.

I didn’t sleep much last night and the ego started in with the “problem of not much sleep” before I even got out of bed. Then it started in with solutions for this problem. I asked Holy Spirit what He would have me do with this, and the answer was to simply experience today without judging it. So when I have felt sleepy or foggy this morning, I have just sat back and enjoyed the feeling. It is not a problem unless I listen to the ego make it a problem.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12, V.The Sane Curriculum, P 7. 3-3-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 7

7 I have said that the ego’s rule is, “Seek and do not find.” Translated into curricular terms this means, “Try to learn but do not succeed.” The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning will be misinterpreted, since they are all for facilitating the learning this strange curriculum is against. If you are trying to learn how not to learn, and the aim of your teaching is to defeat itself, what can you expect but confusion? Such a curriculum does not make sense. This attempt at “learning” has so weakened your mind that you cannot love, for the curriculum you have chosen is against love, and amounts to a course in how to attack yourself. A supplementary goal in this curriculum is learning how not to overcome the split that makes its primary aim believable. And you will not overcome the split in this curriculum, for all your learning will be on its behalf. Yet your mind speaks against your learning as your learning speaks against your mind, and so you fight against all learning and succeed, for that is what you want. But perhaps you do not realize, even yet, that there is something you want to learn, and that you can learn it because it is your choice to do so.

Journal
When I read this I cried in frustration. It sounded like gibberish to me. I cried out to Jesus asking him what it means to me. Yesterday I spent the day going back and forth between my teachers, first feeling frustrated and angry, then asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind and feeling peaceful, then back again to ego. I felt so discouraged with the whole thing and wondered if I could ever end this war in my mind. It didn’t feel like it could happen. By the end of the day I felt better, but some of that discouragement was left over in my mind this morning.

I don’t know why the ego is so strong in my mind right now. Maybe that part of my mind is afraid of the end. This morning it didn’t want to understand the meaning behind these words. It wanted to think that peace is impossible and that even if I understand the concepts, I can’t put them to work. It wants to believe that I am still the separated self and that isn’t going to change. What is the ego mind working so hard to hide from me? What does it not want me to remember?

Here is what comes into my mind when I ask that question. The ego doesn’t want me to recover the memory of being God, of choosing to have this experience, of everything I experience being something I want to experience, and something I chose. It cannot stop the flow of memories, but it can slow them down as it gets my attention with some drama or the other and I start to feel afraid or guilty because I believe the ego interpretation of it.

But what if everything that happens to me is perfect because it is helping me to wake up? What if all these dramas and fearful thoughts and even the things that I feel guilty about are what I am using to wake myself up. Battling my ego self over and over was frustrating, but in the end I chose God. When I got to the hotel I thought about the day and realized how often Spirit had helped me to see more clearly, how just the right thought entered my mind at just the right moment. At one point I felt such a strong desire to listen to a particular section of the Course while I was driving, and a little later when the ego was trying to bring me back into its story again, the words I had listened to helped me to see through the ego.

All of the things I thought and felt yesterday, while very uncomfortable, were actually helping me. I was given many opportunities to see what I don’t want to experience anymore, and many opportunities to make a different choice and to see that the choice is mine, always. How can I call that a failure? I had a necessary and important experience yesterday and today I go forward with more certainty than before.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 6. 3-1-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 6
6 You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. Do not attempt to teach yourself what you do not understand, and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. Your learning goal has been not to learn, and this cannot lead to successful learning. You cannot transfer what you have not learned, and the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. Would you ask those who have failed to learn what learning aids are for? They do not know. If they could interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them.

Journal
Jesus continues to impress on us that we cannot teach ourselves. If you have been a good student of the ego, and a good student of the world, this can be a hard pill to swallow. I was a good student in most subjects, and took pride in that. What I did not excel in, I avoided so that I wouldn’t feel bad about myself.

Now what I have learned is that none of this matters. None of it means anything. It is all just more story, more illusion. I have found it useful to learn to communicate in words and to write. There are other things that have been necessary to learn in order to be in this dream. But what matters, what does have meaning, I can only learn through the Holy Spirit.

This is one lesson I have learned and fully accept. I know the difference between having an intellectual understanding of concepts, and knowing these things so that they are no longer concepts but reality. And I fully accept that this process requires my cooperation, but not my effort. I can read A Course in Miracles all day long, and listen to it all night long, and it will not become real to me for all that work.

What I can do is ask the Holy Spirit to show me what He wants me to know about each situation. I ask Him to heal my mind of the false thoughts I still hold. I do not accept as true any concept I have learned on my own until I have questioned it with the Holy Spirit. I ask Him to teach me what is true and what is false, and then I ask Him to remove from my mind what is not true.

When I notice I am making plans on my own, that I am making decisions without Him, I change my mind. I know this will only bring me more confusion if I keep doing it. I pay attention to my feelings and when I am not happy I know there is a thought that needs to be healed, and ask Holy Spirit for that healing.

Yesterday I was listening to a co-worker complain about the company. I noticed that I agreed with what he was saying, though I could see that he was trying to solve this problem on his own and as a result, he was feeling hopeless. That was the part I did not agree with. I know that with the Holy Spirit nothing is hopeless. Because of the conflict in my own mind, I asked Holy Spirit what to say to this man.

At first, I was doing good, stepping back, waiting for the words to say, but eventually, I started feeling like he was dragging me down to where he was. Later I took this thought to Holy Spirit. He told me that no one could drag me down. What happens is that my own beliefs, some of which I am unaware on a conscious level, get triggered. It was my own buried beliefs and fears that I was reacting to, not my co-worker.

Here is another thing Holy Spirit showed me. I thought I was disturbed by the situation. But the situation merely reflected the disturbance in my mind. In other words, fear, doubt and uncertainty were in my mind. Then the dissatisfaction and subsequent fear of what was going on in the company unfolded as this story of me and my co-worker having this talk.

The belief in the mind always comes first, then the situation. I was not afraid of what was happening at work, what was happening at work was the inevitable effect of my fear. Thank you, Holy Spirit. This is not something I could have taught myself. Even if I understood the concept, I cannot teach myself to know this in my heart. I cannot transfer this knowledge so that I know it in every circumstance of which I am aware. I gratefully retire as my own teacher and accept you as my teacher.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 5. 2-29-16

Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 5
5 You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your limited resources. He becomes your Resource because of yourself you cannot learn. The learning situation in which you placed yourself is impossible, and in this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum. Poor learners are not good choices as teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to them to establish the curriculum by which they can escape from their limitations. If they understood what is beyond them, they would not be handicapped.

Journal
If you have a problem with math, don’t come to me. I can add and subtract and multiply, but beyond that, I have few skills. I would be a poor teacher of math. If you don’t understand algebra or geometry, you need a special teacher with a specific curriculum. And I assure you, if you are as lost in higher mathematics as I am, without a math teacher and without a curriculum designed for this special thing, you are going to be lost. You would not be able to teach yourself.

I did so badly in algebra when I was in school, that one time after I was grown, I decided to try it again. I went to the library and checked out a book written for math simpletons, like me. I did better with this special curriculum than I did in school, but without the right teacher, there was only so far I could go with it.

When it comes to love, I need a special teacher, even more so than I do in math. I have little understanding of what love really is. A Course in Miracles has provided me with a special curriculum, and the Holy Spirit is my Teacher. With this help I am beginning to recognize what is not love, and that is the foundation I was missing.

Here are a couple things that I have learned that help me recognize what love is not. It is not love when I yearn to be with someone because I feel empty. That is using the person, not loving them. It is not love when think that I am incomplete, that is neediness and it too leads to using. It is not love when I comfort someone who is grieving because that person’s grief makes me uncomfortable.

Here is something I have learned about love through my Teacher. Love isn’t something I find in someone else, and it is not something I can lose. I have learned that Love is what I am and so I don’t need someone else to provide it, nor can I lose it. And something else I learned is that in order to know the love that I am, I must share it. It is not something I get, but it is something I give, and it is something I recognize in the giving.

ACIM is a good curriculum, and the Holy Spirit is a good and faithful Teacher. I understand that I can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, and I get this direction from Him. I choose to follow His Guidance and not turn to the ego mind that knows nothing. I have learned that much at least.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12: V. The Sane Curriculum, P 4. 2-26-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 4
4 The Holy Spirit’s Love is your strength, for yours is divided and therefore not real. You cannot trust your own love when you attack it. You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind, because a split mind has made itself a poor learner. You tried to make the separation eternal, because you wanted to retain the characteristics of creation, but with your own content. Yet creation is not of you, and poor learners do need special teaching.

Journal
Now that I am ready to wake up, the idea of making separation eternal is insane, thus I am given a sane curriculum to study. I made this world I see and so I believe in it. I will not be able to teach myself how to let it go. For this I need another teacher; I need the Holy Spirit’s help. I tried to retain the characteristics of creation but with my own content. Well that has not worked out so well.

I need special teaching and I am ready for that. I am committed to this Course and I will do the work I need to do in order to accept that I need do nothing. This Holy Spirit’s curriculum is not complicated or hard, but it does require vigilance and consistency. In the Course we are given a simple three step process of looking with the Holy Spirit at our thoughts, choosing to let Him correct them, and accepting His correction. As I do this, my mind is healed and made whole.

Only my attraction to guilt and the fear of God keep me from fully accepting the Atonement right now, and this is something I am learning through the Holy Spirit’s sane curriculum to let go. I do it a step at a time as I notice guilt and fear being expressed in the classroom of my life, and ask the Holy Spirit to undo them for me. It seemed I had to do this often to get where I am now, more prepared to let the whole idea of guilt and fear go.

It seemed an impossible task and would be if it were not so heavily reinforced. I am surrounded by His angels, guided by masters who have gone before me, fully supported by a host of helpers. And the Holy Spirit has a home in my mind and so I am never alone and never without my Teacher. I cannot fail to learn because it is not my strength on which I lean, but the Holy Spirit’s Love.

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Study of Text, Chapter 12, II.The Sane Curriculum, P 3. 2-25-16

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 3

3 You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack except by recognizing that your attack on yourself has no effects. For others do react to attack if they perceive it, and if you are trying to attack them you will be unable to avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The only place you can cancel out all reinforcement is in yourself. For you are always the first point of your attack, and if this has never been, it has no consequences.

Journal
When I attack myself I have always, in the past, projected that attack outward onto the situation or someone else. I do this less than I used to, but I still do it. The reason I am quick to project is that I believe in my own attack. I believe that I deserve attack, that I can hurt myself, that I am vulnerable. The result of this, besides making myself miserable and possibly creating more problems, is that I reinforce the idea that attack is real and a solution.

I cannot undo attack by defending myself against someone else’s attack, and I cannot undo attack by finding solutions in the world. The world is an effect of attack, not the source of attack. The source of attack is always in my mind and nowhere else so it is my mind that must be healed of the belief in attack as a possibility and as a viable solution to problems.

I used attack in my mind twice yesterday. First, one of my customers told me about my competitor coming by and trying to woo them away. I felt a twinge of concern that didn’t get worse because he assured me they were not interested. That twinge was an attack even if it never bloomed into something bigger. He then told me that a neighboring system, one of mine, did switch to my competitor. Ok, now the bloom is getting bigger, but not full blown yet.

I went to see that customer right away, and all this time I am noticing the feelings of concern trying to grow into panic. I am asking that my mind be healed of this desire to attack and defend. For instance, I would think of things that were done wrong with this customer and feel resentment toward our driver who one time made a mistake. I would think of all the many things I do for these guys to make their work easier and then feel resentment toward them.

This is pretty typical ego thinking, but I notice each one and ask for the Atonement. This is good stuff when viewed from the perspective of purpose. My purpose is to awaken and I do that by undoing the ego in the mind. This situation is providing me with opportunity to see what yet needs to be undone. These attack thoughts seem to be about the situation, but the situation is just an image I have made of the belief that I am unworthy and sinful because I left God. That is the original attack and the one that keeps appearing as images in the world of my making.

When I got there I found out they had indeed agreed to go with the other company, but probably because my constant communication with Spirit has kept me calm and not so self-absorbed, I am able to talk them back to us. I never fell down that rabbit hole, just circled it some. ~smile~ Here is one of the things Spirit asked me while this was going on; “What are you defending?” I could answer truthfully that I was defending the little self, and I could honestly say I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to know that there is no little self to defend.

I had another situation later that night that was more difficult. The competitor that was the problem earlier was at the same meeting as me. I had to face him for over an hour and look at my thoughts about him. As soon as I saw him I asked Holy Spirit to remind me of who he really is. It was tough going, but good practice. I woke up this morning feeling bad that I spent this time attacking, but I also realized I did much better than I would have even a short time ago.

Each of those attacks began in me. I attacked myself, then I projected it outward. In both cases, it was only my mind that needed my attention. Yes there were things to be done, but I could do them in peace and from love if I stopped the attack thoughts in my mind. Especially in the first case, I feel like by the time I reached my customer, my mind was pretty clear. I said what needed to be said, and I did not project attack thoughts. I did not do a victory dance. I am very grateful for the healing. Later that night I had an opportunity to do more work, peel that onion some more. I hope to be done with this one soon.

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