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Study of Manual for Teachers 1-12-12

Day 12

2 The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite superficial. It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters; a “chance” meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult “by chance,” two students “happening” to walk home together. These are not chance encounters. Each of them has the potential for becoming a teaching-learning situation. Perhaps the seeming strangers in the elevator will smile to one another; perhaps the adult will not scold the child for bumping into him; perhaps the students will become friends. Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. That moment will be enough. Salvation has come.

3 It is difficult to understand that levels of teaching the universal course is a concept as meaningless in reality as is time. The illusion of one permits the illusion of the other. In time, the teacher of God seems to begin to change his mind about the world with a single decision, and then learns more and more about the new direction as he teaches it. We have covered the illusion of time already, but the illusion of levels of teaching seems to be something different. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate that these levels cannot exist is simply to say that any level of the teaching-learning situation is part of God’s plan for Atonement, and His plan can have no levels, being a reflection of His Will. Salvation is always ready and always there. God’s teachers work at different levels, but the result is always the same.
Two thoughts occur to me as I read this paragraph. The first is that I am dismayed to think how many opportunities I have had to offer salvation, and have actively chosen not to, or have thoughtlessly chosen not to. The clerk who checked me out at the store, and others I looked right through, barely glancing at them, my thoughts on my own interests which had nothing to do with theirs.

The fellow shopper who seemed to be in my way, the child throwing a tantrum in a restaurant where I had planned to have a quiet meal at the end of a long day, the driver who raced to get the parking space up front that I thought was mine; these are all opportunities to set aside the thought of separate interests. I am going to open my eyes tomorrow. I’m going to be aware of these chances to offer salvation to that person in front of me and so to myself. I think it will be a happy way to spend the day.

The second thing that occurs to me is that I am still confused about levels within the illusion. I have thought of those chance encounters as small and so not important. And I have thought of the relationships with my friends and children and coworkers as being more important because they seem to impact me in a stronger way.

Paragraph 3 helps me to understand this. My work seems to be different in some relationships than in others, that is the level of work required for some relationships may be more intense, but the healing is equal. Perhaps my day of being more aware, and of taking full advantage of every learning-teaching opportunity will help me let go of the mistaken belief that there are levels of learning-teaching.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 1-11-12

3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING?

1 The teachers of God have no set teaching level. Each teaching-learning situation involves a different relationship at the beginning, although the ultimate goal is always the same; to make of the relationship a holy relationship, in which both can look upon the Son of God as sinless. There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other. 
Every sentence in this paragraph tells me something I am happy to know. Relationships have different forms but all have the same goal. Through the teaching-learning process they have the potential to become holy relationships in which they look on each other and see only innocence. While this can happen with any two, there are very specific contacts for all of us and they will show up in our lives.

In light of this information I look at the relationships in my life and see them in an entirely different light. My relationship with my boss has seemed to be complex. I work for my younger brother and over the past 16 years of this relationship, there has been a lot of adjustments as we learned to separate our relationship as siblings from our relationship as boss and employee.

There was sometimes a lot of contention as I often projected my frustrations onto him, and probably he did the same to me.  There was a time during those years when I wondered if our personal relationship would survive our work relationship. But there are no mistakes in salvation, so our coming together was for this purpose, and in every union there is always the potential for a holy relationship.

Slowly, over the years a lot of this has been healed and I now I laugh because I have no reason to see our relationship as separate in any way. He is my brother in every sense of the word, and now I see that the relationship was always only for the purpose of healing. Our relative positions, the work situation, all of it was just the backdrop of this healing. It is simply one more link in the chain of Atonement.

Each of my marriages was exactly the same although at the time I was struggling in the relationships I failed to realize this. I saw each of them as my hope of having my needs met. From this myopic standpoint I set about trying to achieve this goal, and failing to do so, moved on to the next possibility.

How different the relationships would have seemed if I had entered them in recognition of their only true purpose, which was to allow the special relationship to be transformed into a holy relationship. How different the outcome if I had known and accepted that we were always meant to be together for this purpose and the relationship had the potential to succeed regardless of how it seemed in the moment.

As I was reading this paragraph, a difficult relationship came into my mind. For the first time, every objection I have to the relationship and the person simply faded away. My heartfelt prayer was for the healing of this relationship. This teaching-learning situation no longer seemed to be about personalities and needs. All those things that had seemed so important just a moment ago no longer matter to me. This opportunity has been given to us that we might bless the world with its healing, and in light of that holy purpose all the petty grievances are seen as the nothing they are. Holy Spirit, thank you for this knowing. I will protect it with my willingness.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 1-10-12

Day 10

4 Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory, and past even the possibility of remembering. Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now. And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. This is inevitable, because he made the right choice in that ancient instant which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past. God’s Will in everything but seems to take time in the working-out. What could delay the power of eternity? 

5 When pupil and teacher come together, a teaching-learning situation begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the teaching. God’s Teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning purposes. The relationship is holy because of that purpose, and God has promised to send His Spirit into any holy relationship. In the teaching-learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving are the same. The demarcations they have drawn between their roles, their minds, their bodies, their needs, their interests, and all the differences they thought separated them from one another, fade and grow dim and disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own.

Rather than trying to untangle my thoughts about this whole time issue, I am going to simply accept that in time this began so long ago I cannot even imagine it, and at the same time, outside of time it happened… well, not at all. A thought considered an instant and then rejected. And the meeting of teacher/student which seems a revelation to me was actually inevitable. In time a new and surprising event, but not really. Ok, now that we got that straight… Ha ha ha.

I love the way paragraph 5 begins. Right away the stage is set to express the fluid nature of the teaching-learning situation. I have students I work with every day. It appears as if I am the teacher and they the student, and those are the terms we use to make things simpler to speak about. But actually, when we come together for the purpose of true learning, that is checking our egos at the door, leaving behind our separate agendas and all expectations based on what we think we know, neither is the teacher and both are the teacher.

In our emptiness we have made a place for the Teacher to come forward in our awareness and to teach through us. Since He knows the gap of personhood is an illusion He moves seamlessly from one to another, healing as we speak our inadequate words, or say nothing. All that is needed is a true Heart’s desire to be healed through our union of purpose. This profound event, this holy instant may even go unnoticed and unremarked by the two who have come together, but it is a miracle, non-the-less. It is the fulfillment of our purpose.

My experience of the process is that I have absolutely nothing to do with its fulfillment. I simply show up where prompted, follow guidance as best as I can, be as willing as I can be, and even all this is only vaguely in my awareness, and sometimes not at all. It’s not my job to choose where and with whom this is to happen. Jesus is in charge of the Atonement and knows where the chain needs to link next. What a relief to be moved, to be lived, to let go of the intolerable burden of making decisions and taking action on my own. And what an illusion it was anyway. It’s amazing how thoughtlessly I will pick that burden back up again.

Holy Spirit, I invite you to guide me today in all things, to speak through me, to move me where I am needed, and above all, to tap me on my Heart when I start running around on my own thinking I am doing something.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 1/9/12

Day 9

2 In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time that the course sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. Therefore, it corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God’s Son, in that same instant was God’s Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never happened at all. 

3 The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there. As the course emphasizes, you are not free to choose the curriculum, or even the form in which you will learn it. You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept it, it is already learned. 

Yikes! What am I supposed to do with this? When the Course messes with my idea of time, my mind wants to shut down. I have trouble with the idea that my friend from Singapore is calling me, not only from a place thousands of miles away, but from the next day! Its too weird for my mind to deal with. What Jesus is telling us in the Course about time is stranger than strange to my ego mind. I want to say time does not exist and leave it alone. But it is important that I grasp the effect of time being a made up concept, at least important that I understand how this affects the teaching-learning plan.

Ok, here is what I understand, though my understanding is incomplete. I think I came into this classroom to learn something I don’t know and need to know. I think that I made all sorts of decisions during my life, choices that brought me from one understanding to the next. I think that I have met all these interesting people and that sometimes we clicked and became friends or enemies (sometimes first one then the other) and that I get to choose whether or not to continue in the relationship.

None of that is true.

To keep it simple, and not too get too bogged down in the metaphysics (which I only think I understand anyway), what is actually happening here is that I am witnessing a script long ago completed. All that other stuff from the first paragraph only seems to be happening now. Its over. A done deal. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. And by the way, it never really happened. Its an illusion, a dream, a story on an amazingly broad screen appearing in the real deal 3D.

Well jeez, am I so enamored of this story that I just can’t quit? Maybe. This is where it gets fuzzy for me. But what I do understand is that I can step out of this fairy tale at any time because while I can’t change the script, I can decide when.

To get back on ground that doesn’t move under my feet, I will turn my attention to something I can do. I can choose to see what is happening in any way I want. I can choose to see the illusion as if it is real. That’s pretty painful, but it is my choice. I can choose to see the illusion with the Holy Spirit, my Right Mind, and this interpretation is not painful. In fact it ends all suffering, and turns the story from a tragedy into a comedy.

While this would seem to be the obvious choice, I notice that it takes a lot of my made up time and all my attention just to notice when I am making poor choices, and to choose again. Still, what else have I got to do here in la la land? And what has this got to do with being a teacher of God? I am not choosing the learning/teaching situations or the teacher/students. So I can relax, sit back and enjoy the show. And, oh yeah, keep my eye on my runaway mind so that when I notice a lot of drama in the script, I can choose to listen to a different interpretation.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 1/8/12

Day 8

2. WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS?

1 Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God’s teachers, and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not on whom he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him. 

I find it very comforting to know that as a teacher of God, my students are being sent to me. I need do nothing to find them. It’s not up to me to decide if they are ready for what I offer. I don’t have to worry that I won’t have what they need. If they have been sent to me, I can be sure that we are perfectly matched for a learning/teaching situation.

Again, Jesus reminds us that as we teach we learn when he says, “When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.”  My experience has proven this to me. I am very grateful to each and every teaching/learning opportunity that is given me.

Since I was ordained I have had numerous students and opportunities to teach, but Holy Spirit began sending me students before I even knew I had answered a call or even that there was a call to answer. They would come right out of the blue. 

My spiritual life had slowly begun to expand outside the perimeters of traditional religion. Holy Spirit started me off slowly by sending some simple books my way. One of the first I read was a book about Edgar Cayce. That was pretty radical stuff for me back then. It was important because it was a gentle way for me to begin to consider that things are not always what they seem.

Then a book about life after life came my way and I opened to even more to possibilities. I had just finished reading this book when I received my first teaching opportunity, or at least the first one that I was aware of. I was driving a taxicab in Houston, Texas at the time. When my fare got into the cab that morning he was at first quiet, then struck up a conversation, and immediately began telling me about a near death experience he had. It was strange, almost like he was just waiting for the chance to tell me about this.

This man, whose name I never got, had surgery some time back and “died” on the table. They revived him and he had a very vivid memory of his death experience. When he finished telling me about it, he confessed that he had never shared this experience with anyone because he was afraid of being judged. There was only one book out about this kind of thing at that time and it was not as accepted as it is now. He asked me what I thought about what happened to him and what did I think it meant.

I told him about the book I had just finished and suggested he get hold of a copy. I told him I believed him and I don’t know if I said much of anything else, but he left my cab more relieved than when he got in, and he now had a resource that could help him learn more if he wanted to. I was just a bit astounded by the whole thing. Why did he tell me that? How was it that I was one of the few people he would speak to that day that would understand?

At the time this happened, I didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know about being a teacher of God, or that once we put our foot on this path opportunities would unfold before us without our effort. I did feel wonder that it happened and gratitude that somehow I managed to be helpful. I felt a deep satisfaction that only in retrospect did I understand. It seemed a small teaching, but he needed the only thing I could give him, and so it was perfect.

The second teaching opportunity came within a year or so, and I had joined a Unity church by this time and was a tiny bit less clueless than before. I was working in an ad agency and a man came in to look over our stock and started a conversation with me. He quickly began telling me things about his life and I knew he wanted me to help him figure it out.

I didn’t have a clue what to say, but something in me caused me to ask God for words. I think I was very helpful to him. If he was surprised, I was even more surprised. I had never had the experience of teaching myself as I taught someone else. I didn’t know where the words came from, well, from God of course, but I didn’t know, up until that moment, that could happen.

We don’t need to think about how we are going to be used and we don’t need to understand anything that happens. We just need to show up with a willingness to be used by the Holy Spirit.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 1/7/12

Day 7

3 There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.” It can be taught by actions or thoughts; in words or soundlessly; in any language or in no language; in any place or time or manner. It does not matter who the teacher was before he heard the Call. He has become a savior by his answering. He has seen someone else as himself. He has therefore found his own salvation and the salvation of the world. In his rebirth is the world reborn. 

4 This is a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome. They merely save time. Yet it is time alone that winds on wearily, and the world is very tired now. It is old and worn and without hope. There was never a question of outcome, for what can change the Will of God? But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it. Yet time has an ending, and it is this that the teachers of God are appointed to bring about. For time is in their hands. Such was their choice, and it is given them.

So what I have learned from this section, Who are God’s Teachers, is that while all are called to be His teachers, not everyone is going to answer right away, but eventually everyone will. The call is answered in the moment we cease to see someone as different and separate and realize we have a shared purpose. I have also learned that there are many ways to walk this path, and A Course in Miracles is one particular form of this calling, but not the only as there are thousands of others.

No matter which form is chosen they all have one thing in common; Its central theme is always, “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.” I have learned that the Teachers of God are time savers, as the world is old and tired and being in time is suffering, so the world needs its time savers.

I talked about some of the tools that have been given me in the form of books, courses, and teachers. I also was given journaling as a very useful tool. I see that the way I learn this particular curriculum is to teach it every chance I get. I first and foremost teach through my life; how I live, what I say, what I do, how I treat others.

I also teach through my writing as I share my process, and through teaching one to one with students and in groups through workshops and on ACIM Gather. This is just one way to be a teacher of God, and it is specific to me. The Holy Spirit will guide each person according to their willingness to the path that is perfect for them and for the Sonship.

I don’t think this is something I would ever decide for myself because I can’t know all the factors and how one teaching will connect to someone else’s teaching. Only the Holy Spirit is aware of the complete plan, and so only the Holy Spirit knows where I will be best used. I used to have a little grievance going against the Holy Spirit because I wanted to be a scribe like Helen and Regina, and others. I thought (using my ego thinking mind) that this should be my job, too.

I have let that kind of thinking go. What difference does it make which part of the Sonship does what? We are awakening as one because we are one. In retrospect, I see that if I had started my teaching in that way, my ego would be insufferable as it took credit for what was done. Grace saved me from that forgiveness lesson.

Now when someone says how helpful I am, I am glad to be helpful. When someone complements my writing, I just smile. If I swell with pride at a complement, I will also deflate at the first criticism. Being a teacher of God is not about accomplishments. It is only about helping the Sonship awaken by following Guidance.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Manual for Teachers 1/6/12

Day 6

2 They come from all over the world. They come from all religions and from no religion. They are the ones who have answered. The Call is universal. It goes on all the time everywhere. It calls for teachers to speak for It and redeem the world. Many hear It, but few will answer. Yet it is all a matter of time. Everyone will answer in the end, but the end can be a long, long way off. It is because of this that the plan of the teachers was established. Their function is to save time. Each one begins as a single light, but with the Call at its center it is a light that cannot be limited. And each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it. To the Call Itself time has no meaning.

There is a universal Call for the teachers of God. That means it goes out to all, not just to ACIM students. I have to admit that I have in the past believed that fallacy. I was wrong. Everyone gets this call, but not many choose to answer at this time, though all will eventually answer. In the meantime, time drags on and with it, suffering. So in order to speed things along and avoid some of this pain, we are given a plan for the teachers. Jesus is pretty clear about time saved. He says that each of us will save a thousand years.

I personally am tired of the world. This is obviously true, or I would not have accepted the call. I became tired of conflict, tired of drama, and tired of suffering. I became very tired of the instability we experience in time. There is no permanence, nothing to depend on. No matter how happy I might be in any moment, there is the sure knowledge that soon, I will be unhappy.

So I became willing to give up trying to find in the world what is clearly impossible. I have given up on the world and am walking the path I found through A Course in Miracles. I also receive additional “maps” from time to time as my Guide out of here, the Holy Spirit, sends me little surprises.

I was able to accept a higher vision of myself as I read and practiced from A Way of Mastery. I was able to more completely undo the ego and create an empty shell through the study and practice of The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament. I have found practical help in untangling the ego thought process to get to the belief that needs healing through doing Byron Katie’s, The Work.

I’m learning to step aside from ego thinking altogether through the practices outlined in The Teachings of the Inner Ramana. All of these tools have been given me to shorten time. And through my practice of journaling every day, I am learning to hear the Voice more clearly so that He can lead me completely out of time.

When you consider the trap we have created in the making of the world and time, the closed circle of teaching and learning that we made where we use time to teach ourselves that we are what we are not, and we do this over and over again, it is amazing any of us hold onto even a vestige of sanity. This opportunity to teach, and therefore learn something different is truly a miracle.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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