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.
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