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• Joy
16 Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible, and what could come to interfere with joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe. Joy goes with gentleness as surely as grief attends attack. God's teachers trust in Him. And they are sure His Teacher goes before them, making sure no harm can come to them. They hold His gifts and follow in His way because God's Voice directs them in all things. Joy is their song of thanks. And Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of Him. How joyous it is to share the purpose of salvation!
#4.
What Are the Characteristics
of God's Teachers?
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Workbook for Students
Part II
What is a Miracle?
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1 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.
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 342
I let forgiveness rest upon
all things, for thus forgiveness
will be given me.
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1
I thank You, Father, for Your plan to save me from the hell I made. It is not real. And You have given me the means to prove its unreality to me. The key is in my hand, and I have reached the door beyond which lies the end of dreams. I stand before the gate of Heaven, wondering if I should enter in and be at home. Let me not wait again today. Let me forgive all things, and let creation be as You would have it be and as it is. Let me remember that I am Your Son, and opening the door at last, forget illusions in the blazing light of truth, as memory of You returns to me.
2 Brother, forgive me now. I come to you to take you home with me. And as we go, the world goes with us on the way to God.
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Manual for Teachers
4. What Are the Characteristics
of God's Teachers?
par 11-17
[TEXT READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
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• Honesty
11 All other traits of God's teachers rest on trust. Once that has been achieved, the others cannot fail to follow. Only the trusting can afford honesty, for only they can see its value. Honesty does not apply only to what you say. The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do; no thought opposes any other thought; no act belies your word; and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything.
12 The peace of mind which the advanced teachers of God experience is largely due to their perfect honesty. It is only the wish to deceive that makes for war. No one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict. Conflict is the inevitable result of self-deception, and self-deception is dishonesty. There is no challenge to a teacher of God. Challenge implies doubt, and the trust on which God's teachers rest secure makes doubt impossible. Therefore they can only succeed. In this, as in all things, they are honest. They can only succeed because they never do their will alone. They choose for all mankind, for all the world and all things in it, for the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances, and for the Son of God and his Creator. How could they not succeed? They choose in perfect honesty, sure of their choice themselves.
• Tolerance
13 God's teachers do not judge. To judge is to be dishonest, for to judge is to assume a position you do not have. Judgment without self-deception is impossible. Judgment implies that you have been deceived in your brothers. How then could you not have been deceived in yourself? Judgment implies a lack of trust, and trust remains the bed-rock of the teacher of God's whole thought system. Let this be lost, and all his learning goes. Without judgment are all things equally acceptable, for who could judge otherwise? Without judgment are all men brothers, for who is there who stands apart? Judgment destroys honesty and shatters trust. No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn.
• Gentleness
14 Harm is impossible for God's teachers. They can neither harm nor be harmed. Harm is the outcome of judgment. It is the dishonest act that follows a dishonest thought. It is a verdict of guilt upon a brother and therefore on one's self. It is the end of peace and the denial of learning. It demonstrates the absence of God's curriculum and its replacement by insanity. No teacher of God but must learn—and fairly early in his training—that harmfulness completely obliterates his function from his awareness. It will make him confused, fearful, angry, and suspicious. It will make the Holy Spirit's lessons impossible to learn. Nor can God's Teacher be heard at all except by those who realize that harm can actually achieve nothing. No gain can come of it.
15 Therefore God's teachers are wholly gentle. They need the strength of gentleness, for it is in this that the function of salvation becomes easy. To those who would do harm, it is impossible. To those to whom harm has no meaning, it is merely natural. What choice but this has meaning to the sane? Who chooses hell when he perceives a way to Heaven? And who would choose the weakness that must come from harm in place of the unfailing, all-encompassing, and limitless strength of gentleness? The might of God's teachers lies in their gentleness, for they have understood their evil thoughts came neither from God's Son nor his Creator. Thus did they join their thoughts with Him Who is their Source. And so their will, which always was His own, is free to be itself.
• Joy
16 Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible, and what could come to interfere with joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe. Joy goes with gentleness as surely as grief attends attack. God's teachers trust in Him. And they are sure His Teacher goes before them, making sure no harm can come to them. They hold His gifts and follow in His way because God's Voice directs them in all things. Joy is their song of thanks. And Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of Him. How joyous it is to share the purpose of salvation!
• Defenselessness
17 God's teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. They do not try to make themselves. Their joy comes from their understanding Who created them. And does what God created need defense? No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but the foolish guardians of mad illusions. The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds nothing was there. Slowly at first, he lets himself be undeceived. But he learns faster as his trust increases. It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy. And it is God.
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Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 342
I let forgiveness rest upon
all things, for thus forgiveness
will be given me.
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Sarah's Commentary:
This Lesson seems to capture the entire Course teaching. We live in a world that is not real. It is a dream that we have invested with meaning. Now we have been given
"the means to prove its unreality,"
(W.342.1.3) but it is up to us.
"The key is in my hand. . ."
(W.342.1.4) It is up to me to withdraw the meaning I have given to the world. No one will do this for me. I can't ask Jesus to take away my fear, my pain, and my suffering. He calls us from outside the dream to come to where he is. I have to be the one to identify my judgments, take complete and total responsibility for them, recognize that I am the one choosing them, and be willing to release them. I have to be willing to release my investment in my story. I have to be willing to give up my attachments, my values, and my beliefs. I have to be willing to forgive. No one is coming to save me.
"Forgiveness is the key to happiness."
(W.121)
"And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking at them directly, without protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will be looking at is the source of fear, and you are beginning to learn that fear is not real."
(T.11.V.2.2-3) (ACIM OE T.10.VI.40)
"Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot be seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light must dispel it."
(T.11.V.2.8-9) (ACIM OE T.10.VI.41) Thus, healing is no different than a miracle, forgiveness, or Atonement. It is all about releasing guilt, and the way we do this is simply to look at everything that we have put in the way of the love that we are.
The interesting thing is that we are not seriously disturbed about being unhappy. Our desire is mostly to be right about the way we see things. We put a lot of value on our worldview and tenaciously hold onto it. To listen with an open mind and take in what Jesus tells us means that everything we think and believe is wrong. No wonder we have resistance! Jesus says it is really frightening for us to conceive of the fact that
"I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself."
(T.31.V.17.7) (ACIM OE T.31.V.60) We are wrong about everything we believe, including who we think we are. This feels like an insult to our intelligence and threatens our sense of what we perceive as real.
We accept reality as we have determined it to be, and we argue for the correctness of our perception. We don't want to see ourselves as responsible for our condition. We prefer to see ourselves as a victim of circumstances over which we have no control. After all, we did not ask to be born...or did we? We justify our anger and frustration, pointing our finger at others. "If it weren't for them," we claim, "I would be happy." This is the reason that at a deeper level we want to suffer and want to be betrayed so we can make someone else responsible for our suffering. We prefer to suffer as long as we can assure ourselves that someone else is held responsible, and thus guilty, for our condition. It seems worth paying the price in suffering in order to be right and to secretly delight in their guilt.
We want to be right because then we don't have to look at the fact that we chose separation and specialness, which is the real cause of all our pain---the choice we made for the ego. We agreed to accept the myth that we stole our existence from God, and with the horror of that belief in our minds, we chose to escape into the body and the world. It is a place where the ego tells us that we can hide from God and escape His wrath. This is not a conscious thought, but deep down we feel that we have done something dreadfully wrong although we don't know what it is. At our core, we believe we are bad, but Jesus urges us to see that we are innocent and have done nothing wrong. This is all just a dream we are having. By showing us how and why we made it up, he invites us to see that it is not real; but we resist because for us to withdraw our belief in the ego is to withdraw our investment in our separate self and in the world. We hang on because we think there is still some value in the world.
To forgive is to let go of our wrong-minded thinking. It is to let go of the belief that something real is happening that is the cause of our pain.
"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred."
(W.PII.Q1.What is Forgiveness?1.1) Yet this can only make sense if the world is illusory. To us, it seems as if real damage has been done, but Jesus assures us, nothing real has happened because it is just a dream. Now we are invited to look at everything that seems to happen to us as an opportunity to turn our judgments over to be transformed by the miracle.
"It
[the miracle]
merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false."
(W.PII.Q13.What is a Miracle?1.3) The happiness that is already in us can only be known when we are willing to let go of our stories, which means letting go of being right about how we see things.
When someone says or does something that seems to take away my peace, I need to recognize that peace is a condition in me and that no one can take it away. Only I can choose to throw my peace away in the face of a challenging situation. Instead, I can turn to the Holy Spirit to help me withdraw blame from someone for taking my peace. The Holy Spirit reminds me of my brother’s innocence so I can know my own. This Lesson reminds us again that what we give, we receive.
I recently saw a movie about Nelson Mandela's life called,
Long Walk to Freedom
. It is such a beautiful example of forgiveness, love, and reconciliation in the face of dreadful circumstances. He spent 27 years in jail. As I watched the movie, I noticed how everyone played their part so perfectly to allow reconciliation and forgiveness to shine forth. Mandela's influence was based entirely on his example of grace and forgiveness. I thought of my day and the irritants that I made real. The movie reminded me of the message Jesus teaches us---that we are here to be a demonstration of the love we are. All attack is a call for forgiveness and peace. If we see attack in any other way, we are using it as a justification for anger. Jesus saw his crucifixion as a justification for forgiveness, as did Nelson Mandela. They are beautiful symbols for us of what is possible in our own lives.
"Yet the instant you waken you realize that everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all."
(T.10.I.2.4) (ACIM OE T.9.VIII.65)
On our own, we do not know how to respond to any situation. When we think that we know, we are turning to the ego as our teacher. Jesus asks us to resign as our own teacher, acknowledge that we don't know, step back, and turn to the Holy Spirit in every situation. That is what he means when he asks us not to make decisions by ourselves. On our own, we will always be wrong. The ego speaks first, meaning our first thought about how to respond in any situation is ego-driven. When we ask to see another way, we make space for guidance. This simply requires us to be willing to let go of our way and be open to receiving a new perception.
"Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. His perceptions are your natural awareness, and it is only the distortions you introduce that tire you."
(T.II.VI.3.7‑8) (ACIM OE T.10.VII.61) I find that for guidance to come I must take the time to step away from a difficult situation rather than reacting to it. When I take the time to be still and do nothing, the answer always comes; and the answer is always to let go of my way. An insight then comes to me that would not have been there if I had relied on my own thinking. Life is then lived in a state of inspiration, rather than trying to figure things out on my own. When I get out of the way by giving over my interpretations and judgments, the channels are cleared for His Love to come through.
Each time we are willing to recognize that all our sense of lack and deprivation is a choice we make in our own minds and is not caused by anything outside of our mind, we choose with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego, and thus, we experience more love in our lives. This is not dependent on the things going on in our external circumstances, as Nelson Mandela illustrated so beautifully. The good news is that if our own mind is the source of all our unhappiness, so too is it the source of all our happiness. It is all within our power to choose. We have both the thought system of the ego and the thought system of the Holy Spirit in us to choose between. The script is written and it is the script we chose. Now, in each situation and every decision we make in our script, we choose Heaven or hell. We choose to judge or to extend love.
"Let me forgive all things, and let creation be as You would have it be and as it is. Let me remember that I am Your Son, and opening the door at last, forget illusions in the blazing light of truth, as memory of You returns to me."
(W.342.1.7-8)
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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