MANUAL FOR TEACHERS
#12. HOW MANY TEACHERS OF GOD ARE NEEDED TO SAVE THE WORLD?
1 The answer to this question is "one." One wholly perfect teacher whose learning is complete suffices. This One, sanctified and redeemed, becomes the Self Who is the Son of God. He who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees Himself as a body or even as in a body. Therefore He is limitless. And being limitless, His thoughts are joined with God's forever and ever. His perception of himself is based upon God's Judgment, not His own. Thus does He share God's Will, and bring His Thoughts to still deluded minds. He is forever One because He is as God created Him. He has accepted Christ, and He is saved.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK for STUDENTS
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
A miracle is a correction. It
does not create, nor really change at all.
It merely looks on devastation, and
reminds the mind that what it sees is false.
It undoes error, but does not attempt
to go beyond perception, nor exceed
the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays
within time's limits. Yet it paves the way
for the return of timelessness and love's
awakening, for fear must slip away
under the gentle remedy it gives.
A miracle contains the gift of grace,
for it is given and received as one.
And thus it illustrates the law of truth
the world does not obey, because it fails
entirely to understand its ways.
A miracle inverts perception, which
was upside-down before, and thus it ends
the strange distortions that were manifest.
Now is perception open to the truth.
Now is forgiveness fully justified.
Forgiveness is the home of miracles.
The eyes of Christ delivers them to all
they look upon in mercy and in love.
Perception stands corrected in His sight,
and what was meant to curse has come to bless.
Each lily of forgiveness offers all
the world the silent miracle of love.
And each is laid before the Word of God
upon the universal altar to
Creator and creation, in the Light
of perfect purity and endless peace.
The miracle is taken first on faith,
because to ask for it implies the mind
has been made ready to conceive of what
it cannot see and does not understand.
Yet faith will bring its witnesses, to show
that what it rested on is really there.
And thus the miracle will justify your faith
in it, and show it rested on a world
more real than what you saw before;
a world redeemed from what you thought you saw.
Miracles fall like drops of healing rain
from Heaven on a dry and dusty world,
where starved and thirsty creatures came to die.
Now have they water. Now the world is green.
And everywhere the signs of life spring up,
to show that what is born can never die,
for what has life has immortality.
~ Original Hand Script
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSONS
L e s s o n 349
Today I let Christ's vision look upon All things for me and judge them not, But give each one a miracle of love instead.
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
So would I liberate all things I see,
and give to them the freedom that I seek.
For thus do I obey the law of love,
and give what I would find and make my own.
It will be given me because I have
chosen it as the gift I want to give.
Father, Your gifts are mine. Each one that I
accept gives me a miracle to give.
And giving as I would receive, I learn
Your healing miracles belong to me.
Our Father knows our needs. He gives us grace
to meet them all. And so we trust in Him
to send us miracles to bless the world
and heal our minds, as we return to Him.
.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 349
Today I let Christ's vision look upon
All things for me and judge them not, but
Give each one a miracle of love instead
.
Sarah's Commentary:
This is what we need to do today and every day in each situation before us---to let Christ's vision look upon all things, make no judgments about them, and extend the miracle of love. We could either decide what we see is not to our liking, not what we bargained for, and not what we expected or wanted, or we could let go of our judgments about how the situation should be and allow the miracle to replace all grievances instead. What are you upset about today? Every day seems to bring some upsets, with some seemingly bigger than others in our judgment, though they are all the same. Jesus tells us that there is no order of difficulty in the illusion. No problem is bigger than any other problem. They can all be seen as unreal. All illusions are the same. Some are not larger or more difficult than others. All illusions can be solved in the same way, for there is no order of difficulty for the miracle. "One is not 'harder' or 'bigger' than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal." (T.1.I.1.2-4) (ACIM OE T.1.I.1)
You can't be hurt when you don't have constructs on how things need to be. When we define what we want as good and get upset with what we define as bad, we resist what is. Today, I broke some eggs when they fell out of my hands and smashed all over the floor. The temptation was to get angry in my belief that this should not have happened. We may feel victimized by the situation. "Why does this always happen to me?" or "I should have known better! " or "How could I have been so clumsy?" Alternatively, there is a temptation to blame someone else. "If you had not upset me, this would not have happened." "If you had closed the carton properly, the eggs would not have fallen out."
This is the voice of the ego that we spend a lot of our day listening to. It always speaks first. It always judges the situation at hand, holds grievances, and castigates itself or others; and then we wonder why we are not at peace. When we don't buy into the ego's perspective on the situation, we take whatever action is necessary from a place of peace. We see it as a neutral event. When we put our own interpretation on a neutral event, we react accordingly. All our interpretations are based on our desire to judge reality. Our own perceptions are what we deem as the truth. Once we admit we don't know what anything is for and that none of our interpretations is right, we become willing to listen to the Holy Spirit's interpretation.
Jesus says, "It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand." (T.12.I.5.1) (ACIM OE T.11.II.5) We may feel insulted, being told we don't understand when we think we do. We think our perceptions are correct. Yet Jesus asks, would we rather be right about our judgments or listen to him and be happy. We mostly choose to be right about the way we see things, and in the process, throw away our peace and joy. It is clearly insane, but it is how we hold onto our personal selves. As Byron Katie asks, "Who would you be without that thought?" This frightens us, as we have spent our lives defining the self we think we are. Who would we be without these definitions we hold about ourselves? What if we let go of the tragic story we cling to? What if we let go of our belief that the events of the past have defined us? We value our self-concepts and use them to gain what we want from others. Our fear of God's Love is our fear of losing this self we have made and value. It is a self that tries to be good, but if there is good, there must also be bad; and it is the bad we judge in others, while we desperately try to hold onto what we believe is good about ourselves. This is the judgment we project onto others that is the shadow of the good we think we are. Thus, it must all be undone if we are to know the Self.
We are invited to see every situation and event in our lives as instructive and helpful in healing our misperceptions of how we have defined ourselves and how we defend our image. It has all come about from our wrong-minded thought system of sin, guilt, and fear. We have embraced this thought system in the belief that it is safer to be a victim of what others have done to us rather than take responsibility for everything in our lives. Now we are called to see that everything that happens in our lives is a classroom for undoing our wrong-minded thinking. Our wrong-minded thinking has taken us into the separated state where we believe we are. We are not controlled by events outside unless we give them the power to rob us of our peace, whether those events are broken eggs or a broken relationship. It is a powerful thought to realize that nothing outside us is the cause of our loss of peace. If we don't have peace, it is because we have chosen to throw it away and put the cause for our lack of peace and joy on events and circumstances outside us.
We need not be bound any longer to our ego reactions. We can choose to be liberated from the thoughts that arise. When we project responsibility onto our brothers for how we feel, we are keeping the guilt in our own minds. As we bring the judgments we have projected onto them back to our own minds where they can be healed, we also release the bondage of guilt we have laid onto our brothers. Why would we choose to let our brother, whose wrongdoings we have judged as hurting us, off the hook? We do this because that is the only way we can be released from our self-imposed prison. "It is essential to realize this, because otherwise you will be unable to escape from the prison you have made." (T.3.VII.1.8) (ACIM OE T.3.IX.72) As we give pardon to our brother, we receive for ourselves the gift we give. "So would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek." (W.349.1.1) To do so means we have to be willing to be wrong about our perceptions and our judgments.
Jesus tells us that if we obey the law of love, we must give exactly that which we want for ourselves. If we really accepted the fact that with each attack on a brother we are only hurting ourselves, would we choose to judge and attack? We must be prepared to look at how we choose to see others as guilty and be willing to look at our judgments, our expectations, and our plans for how things should be. We then bring these to the Holy Spirit, asking Him to help us release them and thus release our brothers and ourselves. That is how love is extended through us---not by what we, ourselves, deem to be the loving thing to do but by making space for the love we are to come through us. This can only happen when we are willing to look at our judgments and release the blocks to love. Love then extends naturally through us.
To see with Christ's vision is to recognize that we all share the same nature. We hold the same thought system of the ego and we share the same Christ Self. Truth is in everyone's mind, but not everyone is aware of this truth nor the power of decision in our minds to choose again. The miracle is what undoes the thought system of the ego so the truth of who we are and who our brother is can be unveiled. Our perceptions and judgments keep us blind to recognizing the Christ in all our brothers. The miracle is the correction, and it does nothing. "All it does is to undo." (T.28.I.1.2) (ACIM OE T.28.I.1) "And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done. It does not add, but merely takes away." (T.28.I.3-4) (ACIM OE T.28.I.1) When the interference is gone, there is a "re-cognizing" of what we have always known but have forgotten. Thus, there is nothing to seek and no path to take. We already are what we are looking for.
When we refuse to judge, compare, and condemn, and instead accept everyone fully, we see our own love and innocence reflected everywhere; but we cannot simply cover over our anger and judgments. It is not helpful to the healing of our minds to be falsely sympathetic, nice and kind, or falsely people-pleasing, when our thoughts are in turmoil. Instead, we must look with honesty and courage at our blocks to love and be willing to do the healing. We must not deny the pain but go through the darkness to the light; yet we do not go there alone. Ask with sincerity for help from the Holy Spirit so He could deliver the miracle. Now we can join with our brother's strengths (true empathy) in honesty. That is why this process takes courage. We must be willing to look at our own hatred and see it in ourselves for what it is. Only by seeing it can it be healed.
Jesus recognizes our instability on this path when he says, "You who are sometimes sad and sometimes angry; who sometimes feel your just due is not given you, and your best efforts meet with lack of appreciation and even contempt; give up these foolish thoughts! They are too small and meaningless to occupy your holy mind an instant longer. God's judgment waits for you to set you free." (M.15.3.1-3) (ACIM OE M.15.4) He is gentle with us, so be gentle with yourself. To judge yourself for your judgmental, angry, and condemning thoughts will not bring healing. Jesus asks that you look at your thoughts without judgment of yourself. Otherwise, you are making the same mistake as when you judge your brother. God's judgment of us is that we are holy, have never sinned, and are forever innocent. That is His judgment of every brother. Only our judgments keep us from that awareness.
We have only one purpose to being here, which is to connect with our holiness so love could be extended through us to everyone, as we come to know the One Self we are. It is not about trying to achieve new beliefs but giving up the false beliefs that we now hold. To take on new beliefs, though they may be entirely spiritual, is simply to substitute an intellectual perspective with a spiritual ego. The idea here is not to make a better self (ego) but to undo all concepts. It is to undo the personal self, the "I". It is about accepting Atonement for ourselves. It is about giving up our privately held thoughts that we keep hidden and opening up all self-concepts to the truth so we could know the Self we all share.
"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world."
(T.12.VII.9.1) (ACIM OE T.11.VIII. 70) The decision we make in each encounter today is to participate in the liberation or crucifixion of our brothers and thus ourselves. In other words, in each situation, we can choose Heaven or hell for ourselves because whatever we give, we receive. "His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident." (T.21.II.3.3) (ACIM OE T.21.III.17) Of course, we know there are no accidents in salvation. "Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation." (T.8.III.4.6) (ACIM OE T.8.IV.19)
"Our Father knows our needs. He gives us grace to meet them all. And so we trust in Him to send us miracles to bless the world, and heal our minds as we return to Him." (W.349.2.1-3) Our only need is the undoing of our mistaken choice for the separated self. The Answer has been given us by God, who brought His Love into the dream where it awaits us in the right-mind whenever we are ready for the miracle. The miracle's correction for our wrong-minded perspectives reflects God's Love in this dream. Thus, healing is always available to us regardless of the situations that confront us today. Welcome those situations and events, as they are our teachers, showing us what is in our mind that needs healing. In that welcome, we become happy learners.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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#12. How Many Teachers of God Are Needed to Save the World?
1 The answer to this question is "one." One wholly perfect teacher whose learning is complete suffices. This One, sanctified and redeemed, becomes the Self Who is the Son of God. He who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees Himself as a body or even as in a body. Therefore He is limitless. And being limitless, His thoughts are joined with God's forever and ever. His perception of himself is based upon God's Judgment, not His own. Thus does He share God's Will, and bring His Thoughts to still deluded minds. He is forever One because He is as God created Him. He has accepted Christ, and He is saved.
2 Thus does the son of man become the Son of God. It is not really a change; it is a change of mind. Nothing external alters, but everything internal now reflects only the love of God. God can no longer be feared, for the mind sees no cause for punishment. God's teachers appear to be many, for that is the world's need. Yet being joined in one purpose, and one they share with God, how could they be separate from each other? What does it matter if they then appear in many forms? Their minds are one; their joining is complete. And God works through them now as One, for that is what they are.
3 Why is the illusion of many necessary? Only because reality is not understandable to the deluded. Only a very few can hear God's Voice at all, and even they cannot communicate His messages directly through the Spirit Which gave them. They need a medium through which communication becomes possible to those who do not realize that they are spirit. A body they can see. A voice they understand and listen to without the fear that truth would encounter in them. Do not forget that truth can come only where it is welcomed without fear. So do God's teachers need a body, for their unity could not be recognized directly.
4 Yet what makes them God's teachers is their recognition of the proper purpose of the body. As they advance in their profession, they become more and more certain that the body's function is but to let God's Voice speak through it to human ears. And these ears will carry to the mind of the hearer messages which are not of this world, and the mind will understand because of their Source. From this understanding will come the recognition in this new teacher of God of what the body's purpose really is; the only use there really is for it. This lesson is enough to let the thought of unity come in, and what is one is recognized as one. The teachers of God appear to share the illusion of separation, but because of what they use the body for, they do not believe in the illusion despite appearances.
5 The central lesson is always this-that what you use the body for, it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful, it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done, it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions which are responsible for the body's condition. Yet the teacher of God does not make this decision alone. To do that would be to give the body another purpose from the one that keeps it holy. God's Voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role, just as It tells him what his function is. He does not suffer either in going or remaining. Sickness is now impossible to him.
6 Oneness and sickness cannot co-exist. God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams, once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeing and yet surely theirs.
ON LINE SEARCHABLE Original Edition
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