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Manual for Teachers: III. The Function of the Teacher of God, P 3. 2-2-18

III. The Function of the Teacher of God, P 3
3 Not once do the advanced teachers of God consider the forms of sickness in which their brother believes. To do this is to forget that all of them have the same purpose, and therefore are not really different. They seek for God’s Voice in this brother who would so deceive himself as to believe God’s Son can suffer. And they remind him that he did not make himself, and must remain as God created him. They recognize illusions can have no effect. The truth in their minds reaches out to the truth in the minds of their brothers, so that illusions are not reinforced. They are thus brought to truth; truth is not brought to them. So are they dispelled, not by the will of another, but by the One Will with itself. And this is the function of God’s teachers; to see no will as separate from their own, nor theirs as separate from God’s.

Journal
What a great paragraph! First, we are reminded that there is no difference between the forms the sickness might take. One is not harder to heal than another. The reason this is so is that they all share one purpose. I am reminded of the question, “What is it for?” This is all that matters, not the form itself.

Then Jesus expands on what he has said before about how to be helpful. The teacher of God understands that the problem is in the mind not the body. They know that this one has forgotten who he is or he could not be sick. The teacher of God knows that we are always just as God created us and anything else is an illusion and that the effects of illusions are illusions as well. How could it be that one illusion is more real than another illusion? That’s just funny.

So we help by allowing the truth in our mind to reach out to the truth in our brother’s mind. In this way, the illusion is not reinforced. In this way the illusion is brought to the truth so that it can be dispelled, not by my will overcoming another’s but through the power of God in us. This is our function, to see the teacher’s my will is joined with the patient’s will, which is joined with God’s Will.

Here is how this looks in my mind. I have someone on my prayer list who needs a job. I hold her in my mind and I see her perfection expressed as a skill set that someone else needs. I see her and the perfect company being magnetically drawn to each other. I see her joyfully joining with that company and the people working there, each to the other’s benefit. It is such a happy picture that I love thinking about it. It is love finding its way to love, expressing itself in the way most useful at this time and in this place.

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Study of Text, C 15: V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 9. 2-1-18

V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 9
9 God knows you now. He remembers nothing, having always known you exactly as He knows you now. The holy instant reflects His knowing by bringing all perception out of the past, thus removing the frame of reference you have built by which to judge your brothers. Once this is gone, the Holy Spirit substitutes His frame of reference for it. His frame of reference is simply God. The Holy Spirit’s timelessness lies only here. For in the holy instant, free of the past, you see that love is in you, and you have no need to look without and snatch love guiltily from where you thought it was.

Journal

This is simple. How is it that I have a holy relationship instead of a special relationship? I give the past to the Holy Spirit and accept myself as God knows me now. Since God knows me as I am, as the Love of which I was created, and I accept His judgment of me as my own, I know myself as love. Now, where is the need to “find” love? Do I need someone to love me if love is already in me?

This leaves me free to be in a relationship that is free of neediness. I love and want nothing in return. I love because love is natural and joyful. There will be no strings attached, no secret bargains in the relationship. When I first began to understand how special relationships work, I was dismayed at my own part in this.

Even the little things we take for granted in a relationship. For instance the thought I might have of a friend: He will be there for me when I need him. How about, I will be there for myself when I need it. Then I can just enjoy the love I have for him regardless of any response he might like to make or not make.

Have you ever had one of those days where you just felt battered by the world and you thought, “Let me just get home to that special one, and he will make me feel better.” Then you get home and he is not there. Or he is there but doesn’t seem to have an interest in your day, or doesn’t understand what you need. Or you get there and all he wants to do is talk about his problems.

Expectations unmet, secret bargains not lived up to, needs not met by the one you chose to meet them, love not given and received. Yet, is that love at all?  Maybe love seems lost because the interpretation of love is so strange that we no longer know what love is. What if, instead, we choose to see love where it is?

It is within us because that is where God placed it, or rather perhaps it would be more accurate to say that as an extension of Love, you are love. That is the love we each really seek. If we keep looking for it outside ourselves, we are never going to find it. Accept God’s decision about ourselves and we will have no need to look without and snatch love guiltily from where we thought it was.

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Manual for Teachers: III. The Function of the Teacher of God, P 2. 1-31-18

III. The Function of the Teacher of God, P 2
2 To them God’s teachers come, to represent another choice which they had forgotten. The simple presence of a teacher of God is a reminder. His thoughts ask for the right to question what the patient has accepted as true. As God’s messengers, His teachers are the symbols of salvation. They ask the patient for forgiveness for God’s Son in his own Name. They stand for the Alternative. With God’s Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy God has already given them. It is not their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the Word of God. They merely give what has been given them. Very gently they call to their brothers to turn away from death. Behold, you Son of God, what life can offer you. Would you choose sickness in place of this?

Journal
In the previous paragraph, Jesus tells us that we cannot change the patient’s mind. Now he tells us how we can help. As a teacher of God, we stand for the truth. We stand for the Alternative. We do not come to heal the sick, but simply to remind them of the remedy God has already given them. We give them our certainty that they are still as God created them. We do this not with our hands or our voice. Our mind calls to their mind through the truth that is in both. We are symbols of salvation.

This is how I pray for people. I simply remember who they are. I remember that pain and sickness are not real. I remember that this is not God’s Will for His children and so it cannot be. I see in my mind, not the sick and hopeless, but the flawless children of God. I see the truth in their mind blazing into life, guiding them, comforting them and healing any remaining confusion in our mind. I see the essence of who we are and know that we are joined in perfect communion within the Mind of God. I merely give what I have been given.

 

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Study of Text, C 15: V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 8. 1-30-18

V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 8
8 Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here. In the holy instant no one is special, for your personal needs intrude on no one to make your brothers seem different. Without the values from the past, you would see them all the same and like yourself. Nor would you see any separation between yourself and them. In the holy instant, you see in each relationship what it will be when you perceive only the present.

Journal
This paragraph is almost incomprehensible to the ego mind. In the holy instant no one is special… Wait, let me review what Jesus means by the holy instant. Oh yes, it is the instant outside of time in which we choose forgiveness instead of guilt, the miracle instead of a grievance, the Holy Spirit instead of the ego. Yes, I know that the Holy Spirit will bring me to the holy instant if that is my true desire. I choose the Holy Spirit instead of ego, and the rest will follow.

In this timeless moment, no one is special. I see everyone as they are, as they were created, and that means I see (perceive) them as united and me with them, as one glorious self. It is not that one is the same as another, each being interchangeable. It is that there is no other. I love you and you and you because I love because we are all together the One I love. How very strange the idea of one is to a mind mired in separation.

… your personal needs intrude on no one to make your brothers seem different. In the holy instant, outside of time, there is no personal. There is only a shared self. There are no needs. All is given to all. This is another nearly incompressible idea. I wonder if there is any relationship I have ever had that was not burdened by my personal needs. Even those to whom I am the closest bear this burden. I expect something from everyone and feel abandoned or rejected when I don’t receive it.

Without the values from the past, you would see them all the same and like yourself. How did I learn that I have needs and that people I love are expected to fill those needs? I learned it as those expectations were placed on me. I learned it from my parents and other loved ones, and from friends. I learned it from books and movies, and even commercials. All this past learning still drives me today, though not as forcefully as it used to. The holy instant is outside the idea of time. It is free of time and thus free of the past and all that was learned in the past.

In the holy instant, I will see in each relationship what it will be when I perceive only the present. And what is clear to me is that I cannot give myself the holy instant that will lead me to the holy relationship. I can barely grasp its meaning. I need the Holy Spirit for this. That is His function, and mine is to accept the Atonement as it is offered. I can understand just enough to know that I long for holy relationships and I long for the holy instant. I understand enough to do my part. I am assured that this is enough.

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Manual for Teachers: III. The Function of the Teacher of God, P 1. 1-29-18

III. The Function of the Teacher of God, P 1
1 If the patient must change his mind in order to be healed, what does the teacher of God do? Can he change the patient’s mind for him? Certainly not. For those already willing to change their minds he has no function except to rejoice with them, for they have become teachers of God with him. He has, however, a more specific function for those who do not understand what healing is. These patients do not realize they have chosen sickness. On the contrary, they believe that sickness has chosen them. Nor are they open-minded on this point. The body tells them what to do and they obey. They have no idea how insane this concept is. If they even suspected it, they would be healed. Yet they suspect nothing. To them the separation is quite real.

Journal
In the first paragraph, Jesus tells us that we do not change the patient’s mind for him. That is not our part. We will have to wait for the next paragraph to be told our part in their healing.

Here is what I love in this paragraph. Jesus is completely uncompromising in telling us that we choose our sickness; it does not choose us. I almost hate to write about this and I seldom post on my Facebook page my thoughts on this. Some people who are suffering from illness often take offense and will argue for their illness. I can understand this. I understand how the error occurs.

If someone has chosen illness and are in denial about this, they probably do not understand how it occurred. Sometimes we hide our motives from ourselves. I know that this has happened to me. It has been a while since I believed that sickness chose me, but even so, I am sometimes flummoxed as I try to understand why I did this to myself or how I did it.

What I have discovered through A Course in Miracles and my own Inner Teacher is that my choice for sickness is always driven by guilt. Guilt demands punishment and illness is one of the ways we punish ourselves. I may not know which particular story of guilt is the one that drove me to this punishment, but if I need to know, the Holy Spirit will inform me. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter. Guilt is not real and so none of the forms it takes are real.

I have learned that I hold onto sickness when I see some value in it. Sometimes I can find the value within the story. For instance, I need a headache so that I don’t have to do something I should have said no to in the first place. Or I choose sickness because I feel unloved or lonely and want someone to pay attention to me. The ego mind has use of sickness to keep us firmly in the story of separation and bodies. Ultimately, the ego uses sickness to prove that I am a body and so I cannot be part of God. Sickness settles it; I am not as God created me.

Another reason why the idea that we choose sickness is hard to swallow is that in the untrained mind it brings up guilt. It is bad enough to be suffering, one does not want to feel guilty for suffering as well. But as the mind is healed, the guilt falls away and responsibility takes its place. I am not guilty of anything, but I am responsible. And with the acceptance of responsibility, comes the solution.

If I chose sickness, I can choose health as easily. When I am occasionally sick, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the beliefs that sourced this sickness. I become willing to look at my choice with the Holy Spirit and to hide nothing from Him or from myself. What is the value of this sickness? As I lose interest in keeping the sickness, it is no longer sustained by my mind and generally goes pretty quickly.

Of course, I don’t want a sick body. It is a miserable way to experience this illusion. But more importantly, I want the mind to be healed. The body is used by the ego to prove I am separate from God, but the Holy Spirit uses it to undo that belief. The body experiences sickness and that tells me that there is something in my mind that needs to be seen and released. The body is used as a classroom and as I learn my lessons, the body takes on a new purpose, that is to communicate love. I become a more effective teacher of God.

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Study of Text, C 15: V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 7. 1-26-18

V. The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, P 7
7 The ego’s use of relationships is so fragmented that it frequently goes even farther; one part of one aspect suits its purpose, while it prefers different parts of another aspect. Thus does it assemble reality to its own capricious liking, offering for your seeking a picture whose likeness does not exist. For there is nothing in Heaven or earth that it resembles, and so, however much you seek for its reality, you cannot find it because it is not real.

Journal
We began by acknowledging that our use of relationships is fragmented. I choose to love certain parts of the Sonship, and not to love others. One person suits my desires and others don’t. That is very clear to me. I love my child more than another person’s child. I love my sibling’s children perhaps less than I love mine, but more than I love a stranger’s children. I love one man more than I love another, one friend more than I love another friend. None of that is as true as it used to be more me, but still has elements of truth in it.

So, do I fragment my relationships even further? I love one thing about this child than I do other things about him or her. I love one aspect of my friend but really don’t love another thing about her. Maybe I even hate another thing about her. I wonder how we can call that love at all. We even have a name for this weird phenomenon; we call it the love/hate relationship. And we accept it as if it was natural.

Love is love all the time, in every circumstance, under every condition, or it is not love. It is not quantifiable. There is no “more” love or “less” love. There is only love. If I can qualify or quantify my love, then it is not actually love; it is something else. And since there is nothing outside love, then what I am calling love is actually nothing. Love exists and it cannot be altered and still be love.

Gravity is a force which tries to pull two objects toward each other. Anything which has mass also has a gravitational pull. The more massive an object is, the stronger its gravitational pull is. Earth’s gravity is what keeps you on the ground and what causes objects to fall. Suppose I found a way to add something else to this natural force, or to take something away from its true nature. Then it wouldn’t be gravity anymore. It would be something else and I would have to find another name for it. Love is immutable and yet we add and take away and still insist it is love.

What if I agree that gravity is the same all the time but I also decide it will be in operation only on those particular objects of my choosing. When I stand on my scale to see what I weigh, gravity is going to be less than when I walk across my floor. Now I have a special relationship with gravity as it applies to my scale. This is silly, and it doesn’t work that way. But this is what we try to do with relationships, and then we wonder why they don’t work.

What if I absolutely loved my friend? I loved her exactly the same whether she was being kind or hateful, funny or ridiculous, serious or lighthearted. I loved her regardless of how she felt about me. I loved her if she stole from me or gave to me most generously. What if I love your friend in the same way that I love my friend? What if I love the store clerk exactly as much as I love my children, no differently, not more nor less. We would then know what love really is, knowledge we have lost in our quest to redefine it for our own purposes.

Can you imagine what relationships would be like in this case? They would be as dependable as gravity. They would be as sublime as the love of a mother for her newborn child. Every relationship would bring utter joy to us and if we left the presence of one person and came into the presence of another, no matter who they were, we would feel the same transcendent love. If we left everyone and were alone we would still feel that bliss because the love did not leave. It is what we are so we cannot be away from it; we can only deny it. We deny love when we redefine it as our special relationships. We lose the joy of relationship when we make them special.

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Manual for Teachers: II.The Shift in Perception, P 4. 1-24-18

II. The Shift in Perception, P 4
4 With this idea is pain forever gone. But with this idea goes also all confusion about creation. Does not this follow of necessity? Place cause and effect in their true sequence in one respect, and the learning will generalize and transform the world. The transfer value of one true idea has no end or limit. The final outcome of this lesson is the remembrance of God. What do guilt and sickness, pain, disaster and all suffering mean now? Having no purpose, they are gone. And with them also go all the effects they seemed to cause. Cause and effect but replicate creation. Seen in their proper perspective, without distortion and without fear, they re-establish Heaven.

Journal

I find the idea of pain and sickness as a function of the mind to be easy to understand. I believe what I read here. The body is not the source of what seems to be happening to it. It is the mind that creates and the mind that produces form, all form, including pain and sickness. When I feel pain, I remind myself that the pain did not originate in the body, but in my mind. Even further, it is not in my body at all but in my mind being projected onto the idea of a body.

If pain and sickness occur as a function of the mind, then it is the mind that is cause and the body experience as effect. And if this is true for pain and sickness and the body, then it is true for every form within the world, and this means that the mind is the cause of the world altogether. The mind is the cause of all of it, and the forms we see with our eyes are the effect of what the mind caused. What this means is that we have been wasting our time trying to heal and fix the effect. It is the cause that must be adjusted if we want a different effect.

What would be the outcome of placing cause and effect in their true order? Here is what has changed thus far within my story of the body and the world around me. When I get sick, I never look for a cause outside my mind. The idea of one might come into my mind briefly, but I know that is just an old habit and meaningless to me. I think the most persistent of these ideas is that the size and shape and weight of my body are caused by outside forces like what I eat and how much exercise I get. I still go back and forth on that even though I know the truth.

I still get sick sometimes but because I know the cause, I immediately turn to the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the beliefs that produced this form. As Jesus told us, all thought produces form at some level. If my thought is of the lower level, that is untrue thoughts, I will see it as form in the body and other places in this world. Even the truest perception will not produce form on a higher level, I think, but just make for a happier dream.

If the thought is of the higher level, that is, true thoughts or thoughts I think with God, then I assume I will see it as a higher form, at another level. There is a place in the Course where Jesus tells us that there is a real world beneath this illusion we have made. So maybe that is how higher thoughts produce a higher form. Who knows what that is like? Maybe a world of light and color, of pure love, beautiful beyond our imagining. But I digress.

The point that Jesus is making here in this paragraph is that all we see is caused by our mind. If we are willing to accept this, and if we are willing to allow the mind to be purified of ego thinking, then all we see will change. Pain and sickness, poverty, cruelty, suffering and death, all will be gone because the sick mind that caused these things will have been healed. From a healed mind comes a healed world. It is the only way that this can work. Cause is first, effect follows. The final outcome of this lesson is the remembrance of God.

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