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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.
#12.
How Many Teachers of God
Are Needed to Save the World?
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Workbook for Students
Part II
What am I?
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1
I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy sinlessness itself, for in my purity abides His own.
2 Our use for words is almost over now. Yet in the final days of this one year we gave to God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we shared. And thus you joined with me. So what I am are you as well. The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. Yet we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us.
3 We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is therefore given us. We look on everyone as brothers and perceive all things as kindly and as good. We do not seek a function that is past the gates of Heaven. Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are concerned only with giving welcome to the truth.
4 Ours are the eyes through which Christ's vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice of God proclaim the world as sinless. Ours the minds which join together as we bless the world. And from the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers, asking them to share our peace and consummate our joy.
5 We are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts. And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came and which we seek to serve. We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 351
My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.
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1
Who is my brother but Your holy Son? And if I see him sinful, I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God, alone and friendless in a fearful world. Yet this perception is a choice I make and can relinquish. I can also see my brother sinless as Your holy Son. And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear. Choose, then, for me, my Father, through Your Voice. For He alone gives judgment in Your Name.
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Lesson ARCHIVE
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Manual for Teachers
12. How Many Teachers of God
Are Needed to Save the World?
par 1-6
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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.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 351
My sinless brother
is my guide to peace.
My sinful brother
is my guide to pain.
And which I choose
to see I will behold.
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Sarah's Commentary:
We now enter the last of the "What is" Sections of the Workbook with the question,
"What Am I?"
(W.PII.Q14) The explanation given is a powerful affirmation of the truth of who we really are. Today, we reflect deeply on what is said here about who we are. Jesus says that we are the holy home of God Himself!
"I am the Heaven where His Love resides."
(W.PII.Q14.1.5) However, no matter what is said, it is impossible to describe our reality in words. Jesus tells us,
"Our use for words is almost over now."
(W.PII.Q14.2.) It is time for experience so we can come to know our completion, our perfection, our joy without opposite, and our innocence in which we know,
"I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own."
(W.PII.Q14.1.6)
Our reality is described as,
"God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love."
(W.PII.Q14.1.1) Love is perfected in us, fear is impossible, and joy has no opposite. We are pure, sinless, holy---all words used to describe Jesus, which is beyond anything we can conceive of within ourselves. Nothing we believe we have done can or has ever changed our reality because we are
"the holy home of God Himself."
(W.PII.Q14.1.4) Of course, this is not the Self we identify with. What we have made of ourselves is a shabby substitute for our reality as the Christ Self.
Jesus tells us that the self-concept we have made bears no likeness to our true Self at all. Our problem now is that we don't know who we are. That is why we don't know our own best interests. The concept of the self we have made
"is an idol, made to take the place of your reality as Son of God."
(T.31.V.2.3) (ACIM OE T.31.V.43) All our pain comes from this image that seems to have taken the place of the true Self. That image is a role we play in the world. It is the costume of a character we have taken on, made to let us forget our reality as God's Son. Only by knowing who we are as we were created by God can we know true happiness.
"The Rules for Decision"
(Chapter 30) remind us that we can make this day holy, as any day could be made holy. In the midst of so much frenetic activity that typically takes place at this time of year, we are reminded that this can be a day of peace if we don't make any decisions by ourselves.
"This means that we are choosing not to be the judge of what to do. But it must also mean you will not judge the situations where you will be called upon to make response. For if you judge them, you have set the rules for how you should react to them."
(T.30.I.2.3-5) (ACIM OE T.30.II.5) Instead, we are invited to make a choice for peace and thus open the way for the birth of Christ in us. This is the way our function as the
"bringers of salvation"
(W.PII.Q14.3.1) will be realized. By seeing everything through the eyes of Christ, we
"perceive all things as kindly and as good."
(W.PII.Q14.3.4)
In Section 15 of the Manual for Teachers, the message of our holiness is stated again as follows:
"Holy are you, eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God. Where is the world, and where is sorrow now?"
(M.15.1.11) We are then challenged by the question,
"Do you believe that this is wholly true? No; not yet, not yet. But this is still your goal; why you are here."
(M.15.2.2-4) In the instant of time when we get this, we "
will go beyond belief to Certainty,"
(M.15.2.6) and that is what makes the day holy. It is in this day, no different than any other day, that we can experience Christ's birth in us. In that sense, every day can be Christmas day---a day when we receive good tidings of great joy.
Until that experience dawns on us, Jesus reminds us of our unstable state of being:
"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!"
(M.15.3.1) Such thoughts are
"too small and meaningless to occupy your holy mind an instant longer."
(M.15.3.2)
How do we get free of this prison house of our foolish thoughts, our grievances, our worries, our sadness, and our frenetic activity? The answer is to bring these thoughts to the truth and be willing to see that we are wrong about every interpretation we make of what others have seemingly done to us, making us the victims of their attacks. When the temptation arises to defend how right we are, it is simply another opportunity to step back and ask for another way to see the situation. And yes, it is an opportunity not to get discouraged. We just keep doing the work until forgiveness becomes a habit.
Jesus tells us that when we are willing to see our brothers sinless, we will come to know our own reality. Notice how we prefer to hold our brothers as sinful and see ourselves as unjustly treated. That is why we need our
"Comforter and Friend"
(W.351.1.5) beside us because He makes our way
"secure and clear."
(W.351.1.5)
"Choose, then, for me, my Father,"
(W.351.1.6) and at our request, it is done. We ask to be guided, which is the clear message in Chapter 30,
"Rules for Decision."
There are a number of corrective steps provided in this section, but in the end, there is only one rule here and that is to decide who is going to be our guide---the Holy Spirit or the ego. When we choose the Holy Spirit as our Guide in everything we do, He makes our way
"secure and clear."
(W.351.1.5)
Another good adjunct to this Lesson is in (Text 20.VIII) (ACIM OE T.20.IX)
"The Vision of Sinlessness."
Here Jesus asks,
"Do you not want to know your own Identity? Would you not happily exchange your doubts for certainty. Would you not willingly be free of misery, and learn again of joy? Your holy relationship offers all this to you."
(T.20.VIII.2.1-3) (ACIM OE T.20.IX.68) Later, he reminds us of the vulnerability of our bodies.
"The body is the sign of weakness, vulnerability and loss of power. Can such a savior help you? Would you turn in your distress and need for help unto the helpless? Is the pitifully little the perfect choice to call upon for strength. Judgment will seem to make your savior weak. Yet it is
you
who needs his strength. There is no problem, no event or situation, no perplexity that vision will not solve. All is redeemed when looked upon with vision."
(T.20.VIII.5.1-8) (ACIM OE T.20.IX.71) And later he says,
"Only two purposes are possible. And one is sin, the other holiness. Nothing is in between, and which you choose determines what you want to see."
(T.20.VIII.9) (ACIM OE T.20.IX.68)
We have been a stranger to ourselves for a long time. We have been lost in the ego's darkness, and our world is a projection of that darkness in our mind. It shows us the fear in our minds, which keeps us in a state of constant stress. Yet, as we know, it does not have to be this way. Let us commit to the vigilance required to remain focused on bringing all our pain to the light so we can make way for the peace within. This Lesson offers a simple formula to do just that. We can admit that our way of seeing is wrong and that we are willing to turn to One who knows and can reveal to us who we are. Our part is to consistently and willingly turn our thoughts over to Him. This Lesson says that this is the only choice to be made. It is a decision between a choice to see our brother as sinful or sinless; and with that choice comes fear and loneliness, or happiness, comfort, clarity, and security. When you really believe this, you become motivated to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit to see everyone you meet as innocent, regardless of how much they seem to commit errors in your perception.
Think about how important this choice is that you are making today. Which will we choose to see today---the misbehaving body of our brother or his holiness? Our day will be determined by our choice. Vigilance in watching our minds and being willing to bring any interference to the truth are what this journey is about. It is to remember our purpose. If our purpose is to wake up to the truth of who we are, everything in our lives can provide us with the opportunity to do so.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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Allen Watson's
Workbook Commentaries
Allen joined Robert Perry in forming the Circle of Atonement in 1993 in Sedona, Arizona where Allen led retreats and workshops and authored many books based on “A Course in Miracles.” One of his most popular books is:
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