I. The Direction of the Curriculum, Paragraph 5
5 The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourself, but so is its outcome. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you want a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary. The first change to be introduced is a change in direction. A meaningful curriculum cannot be inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot be integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously, each one merely interferes with the other. This leads to fluctuation, but not to change. The volatile have no direction. They cannot choose one because they cannot relinquish the other, even if it does not exist. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them that all directions exist, and gives them no rationale for choice.
I have established that my previous curriculum (the ego’s curriculum) has made me unhappy. Even what I perceived as happiness, I now see was just a temporary absence of unhappiness. The moments I thought of as my most precious were tainted by the fear of loss because that was the pattern established by ego.
Now I am ready to establish my new curriculum permanently. I have already chosen a new direction and have experienced moments of true happiness, but it has not been lasting. I see the reason as I read this paragraph. My curriculum is not meaningful yet, because I still have two teachers with diametrically opposed systems. They interfere with each other.
My mind becomes muddled as I try to listen to both, choosing to follow one and then the other. I laugh to myself as I imagine my GPS running two programs at once. One program takes me on an easterly path and the other chooses one that goes west. One turns me left and the other turns me right. My GPS would be, in effect, saying that all directions will take me to where I want to go, and that could not be true. I would experience frustration and unhappiness, and I would be a very long time getting to my destination, if I ever got there at all.
Fortunately, my Garmin has only one voice, only one director. It takes me surely and quickly to my destination as long as I follow its directions. This is as it can be for my path through life. I have a choice between two voices and I can follow either. It seems that I can also choose to follow both, but with the same dissatisfying results I would have if my GPS had two voices. I have already proven to myself that the Voice for God is consistent and that it takes me where I truly want to go.
I have been listening to the ego voice for a long time and sometimes I still, out of habit, choose that voice now. But when I do, I not only become confused, but I wind up where I don’t want to be. The ego voice as not gone away for me yet, but the Voice for God is strong in my mind and I hear it even as I hear the ego. I am learning to tune out the ego more often than not. My path is straighter and my journey more peaceful.
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