Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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The teachers of God have no set teaching level. Each teaching-learning
situation involves a different relationship at the beginning, although
the ultimate goal is always the same—to make of the relationship a holy
relationship in which both can look upon the Son of God as sinless.
There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no
one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view, he
cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore, the plan
includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God.
There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet,
because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They
are ready for each other.
2 The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite
superficial. It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters—a
chance meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is
not looking where he is going running into an adult “by accident,” two
students who happen to walk home together. These are not chance
encounters. Each of them has the potential for becoming a
teaching-learning situation. Perhaps the seeming strangers in the
elevator will smile to one another; perhaps the man will not scold the
child for bumping into him; perhaps the students will become friends.
Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two
people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. That
moment will be enough. Salvation has come.
3 It is difficult to understand that levels of teaching the
universal course is a concept as meaningless in reality as is time. The
illusion of one permits the illusion of the other. In time, the teacher
of God seems to begin to change his mind about the world with the single
decision, and then learns more and more about the new direction as he
teaches it. We have covered the illusion of time already, but the
illusion of levels of teaching seems to be something different. Perhaps
the best way to demonstrate that these levels cannot exist is simply to
say that any level of the teaching-learning situation is part of God’s
plan for Atonement, and His plan can have no levels, being a reflection
of His Will. Salvation is always ready and always there. God’s teachers
work at different levels, but the result is always the same.
4 Each teaching-learning situation is maximal in the sense
that each person involved will learn the most that he can from the other
person at that time. In this sense, and in this sense only, we can speak
of levels of teaching. Using the term in this way, the second level of
teaching is a more sustained relationship in which for a time two people
enter into a fairly intense teaching-learning situation and then appear
to separate. As with the first level, these meetings are not accidental,
nor is what appears to be the end of the relationship a real end. Again,
each has learned the most he can at the time. Yet all who meet will
someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become
holy. God is not mistaken in His Son.
5 The third level of teaching occurs in relationships which,
once they are formed, are lifelong. These are teaching-learning
situations in which each person is given a chosen learning partner who
presents him with unlimited opportunities for learning. These
relationships are generally few, because their existence implies that
those involved have reached a stage simultaneously in which the
teaching-learning balance is actually perfect. This does not mean that
they necessarily recognize this; in fact, they generally do not. They
may even be quite hostile to each other for some time, and perhaps for
life. Yet should they decide to learn it, the perfect lesson is before
them and can be learned. And if they decide to learn that lesson, they
become the saviors of the teachers who falter and may even seem to fail.
No teacher of God can fail to find the Help he needs.