Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God’s teachers, and they
will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They
were chosen for him, because the form of the universal curriculum that
he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding.
His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again,
it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role,
they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice but not whom
he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach
will be provided for him.
2 In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of
salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time which the course
sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not the truth. Therefore it
corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was
established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is
entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant
the idea of separation entered the Mind of God’s Son, in that same
instant was God’s Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In
reality it never happened at all.
3 The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened
long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be
open, yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago
passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different
approach. Because your will is free, you can accept what has already
happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it
was always there. As the course emphasizes, you are not free to choose
the curriculum or even the form in which you will learn it. You are
free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept
it, it is already learned.
4 Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient
that it is beyond all memory and past even the possibility of
remembering. Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and
again and still again, it seems to be now. And thus it is that pupil and
teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if
they had not met before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right
place. This is inevitable, because he made the right choice in that
ancient instant which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an
inevitable choice out of an ancient past. God’s Will in everything but
seems to take time in the working-out. What could delay the Power of
eternity?
5 When pupil and teacher come together, a teaching-learning
situation begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the
teaching. God’s Teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning
purposes. The relationship is holy because of that purpose, and God has
promised to send His Spirit into any holy relationship. In the
teaching-learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving
are the same. The demarcations they have drawn between their roles,
their minds, their bodies, their needs, their interests, and all the
differences they thought separated them from one another fade and grow
dim and disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one
interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher
of God himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher
to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own.