43 Only love is strong because it is
undivided. The strong do not attack because they see no need to do so.
Before the idea of attack can enter your mind, you must have
perceived yourself as weak. Because you had attacked yourself and believed that the attack was
effective, you behold yourself as weakened. No longer perceiving yourself and all your brothers as equal and regarding yourself as
weaker, you attempt to "equalize" the situation
you have made. You use attack to do so because you believe that attack was successful in weakening
you.
44 That is why the recognition of your
own invulnerability is so important in the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack
has no effect. Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will demonstrate that
nothing happened. Therefore, by attacking you have not done
anything. Once you realize this, there is no longer any
sense in attack, for it manifestly
does not work and
cannot protect you. Yet the recognition of your invulnerability has more than negative value. If your attacks on yourself have
failed to weaken you,
you are still strong. You therefore have no need to "equalize" the situation to establish your strength.
45 You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack
except by recognizing that your attack on
yourself had no effects. For others
do react to attack if they perceive it, and if you are trying to attack
them, you will be unable to avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The
only place where you can cancel out all reinforcement is in
yourself. For
you are always the first point of your attack, and if
this has never been, it
has no consequences.
46 The Holy Spirit's love is your strength, for yours is divided and therefore not real. You could not trust your own love when you have
attacked it. You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind because a split mind has
made itself a poor learner. You tried to make the separation eternal because you wanted to retain the characteristics of creation with your own
content. Yet creation is
not of you, and poor learners need special teaching. You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense.
47 There are areas in your learning skills which are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction provided by a Teacher Who can
transcend your limited resources. He
becomes your resource because, of
yourself, you
cannot learn. The learning situation in which you placed yourself
is impossible, and in this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum. Poor learners are not good choices for teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to
them to establish the curriculum by which they can
escape from their limitations. If they understood what is beyond them, they would not
be handicapped.
48 You do not know the meaning of love, and that
is your handicap. Do not attempt to teach yourselves what you do not understand, and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed.
Your learning goal has been
not to learn, and this
cannot lead to successful learning. You cannot transfer what you have not learned, and the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. Would you ask those who have
failed to learn what learning aids are
for? They do not know. For if they could interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them.
49 We have said that the ego's rule is, "Seek and do
not find." Translated into curricular terms, this is the same as saying, "
Try to learn but do
not succeed." The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning
will be misinterpreted. For they are all for learning facilitation, which this strange curriculum goal is
against. If you are trying to learn how
not to learn and are using the aim of teaching to
defeat itself, what can you expect
but confusion? The curriculum does not make
sense.
50 This kind of "learning" has so weakened your mind that you
cannot love, for the curriculum you have chosen is
against love and amounts to a course in
how to attack yourself. A necessary minor, supplementing this major curriculum goal, is learning how
not to overcome the split which made this goal believable. And you can
not overcome it, for all
your learning is on its
behalf. Yet your will speaks against your learning, as your learning speaks against your will, and so you fight
against learning and succeed, for that
is your will. But you do not realize even yet that there
is something you
do will to learn, and that you can learn it because it
is your will to do so.
51 You who have tried to learn what you do
not will should take heart, for although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous if you look at it. Is it
possible that the way to achieve a goal is
not to attain it? Resign
now as your own teachers.
This resignation will
not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves and of the learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become excellent learners and teachers. But it is not so yet and will not
be so until the whole learning situation as
you have set it up is reversed.
52 Your learning
potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. You can
teach the way to Him
and learn it if you follow the Teacher Who knows it and His curriculum for learning it. The curriculum is totally unambiguous because the goal is
not divided, and the means and the end are in
complete accord. You need offer only
undivided attention. Everything else will be
given you. For it is
your will to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the will of God's Son. His learning is as unlimited as
he is.
