Teachings of Christ Mind

^1.1 Acceptance of me is acceptance of your Self. Acceptance of me is acceptance of your inheritance. This is nothing new to those of you of the Christian faith. To others it will seem an acceptance beyond your ability, an acceptance that there is no real cause to request. Why must Jesus be accepted? Why cannot the truth be accepted? Why cannot everyone hold their distinct beliefs as long as they are beliefs in the truth?

^1.2 Beliefs are not what is being spoken of here. Acceptance is. Acceptance is not belief, it is not prayer. I care not in what form of the truth you believe, nor to what god you believe you send your prayers; although if you do not believe in your Self above a form of truth, and if you continue to send your prayers to a god who is other than you, you will not cross the threshold.

^1.3 We are here on the top of the mountain together, beginning our work together. I am no longer your teacher, but there is a reason that you are here with me. You have been listening to my words, and these words are what have brought you here, not to a place but to an ascended state. Without your acceptance of who I am, you will not fully accept who you are. Without your willingness to achieve this acceptance, you will not receive the secret of succession presented here. You can read of it still, but it will not convey to you what it will convey to those who have accepted me. You will return to level ground with eyes unopened and listen to parables once again and learn once again from the stories of others.

^1.4 Why should this be so important? Why not leave well enough alone? If acceptance of Jesus is a stumbling block for many, why should it be required? A college education has requirements. If math is a stumbling block for some, a foreign language for another, are these requirements waived? Let us just accept that requirements are prerequisites for many states you value. To marry one man you must choose to leave others behind. This is required. This does not mean the married woman will not relate to many men in many ways, have many male friends, teachers, guides. It means that one is chosen as a mate to the exclusion of others chosen as a mate.

^1.5 In these examples we are talking of simple requirements, requirements of daily life rather than of eternal life. The requirement asked of you here is not to exclude others in whom you believe and have found a connection to eternal life, only to accept me as who I am.

^1.6 Now that you have moved beyond the thought system of the ego self, you look back on it and realize why you could not know your Self while the ego was your guide. You were required to make a choice between the thought system of the ego and the thought system of unity. This choice was made, and thus you have arrived here and left behind the state of the initiate, the time of waiting. You have chosen. You are merely asked now to look at what you have chosen and to understand what you inherit through the secret of succession.

^1.7 If you are to succeed me, you must accept me, much as you must accept your ascension to this mountain peak and this dialogue that is occurring here. If you believe this mountain peak is merely metaphorical, you will not realize that you have ascended or that you have left behind the conditions of the initiate. If you believe these are words of wisdom and that you can remain ambivalent about their source, you will not know me nor accept me, and you will not know or accept your Self.

^1.8 Why are we so linked that your ability to know your Self is contingent upon your ability to know me? Because I am. This is akin to saying Love is. I am what is. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

^1.9 Not accepting me would be like training to be an astronaut and, at the moment of takeoff, refusing the requirement of the spacecraft as the way to reach outer space. This would be akin to non-acceptance of the way that has been given to bring your desire to fruition. The spacecraft could be seen as a response to your desire. So too can I.

^1.10 This would be like saying, “If I am an astronaut, I can reach outer space without a spacecraft. I have been trained, I understand the truth about outer space, I believe in my abilities; but I do not accept the spacecraft as necessary.” Lest this example fail to move you I will continue.

^1.11 Many people now are discovering the power of healing. Some think this power comes from one source and some from another. You may think that, as long as the power is called forth, it matters not the name by which it is called. You may think that it all comes from the same source, regardless of what the practitioner of healing calls it, be the practitioner a faith healer or a medical doctor. You may make one exclusive choice to attend to your needs of healing, or you may make many choices. You may think these choices matter not, but only the power of the healer. Some of you may see this example as an example of why you should not need to accept me. You may claim that you understand that this power is of God, whether it be the power of granting life to grow within the womb, or the power of giving new life to a limb withered or broken. You may wonder why it should matter whether this power be called Buddha or Allah, Muhammad or God.

^1.12 It matters not. The power of God is not what is being spoken of here. It is our power that is being spoken of here. The power of the god man. The power of God brought into form. The power of who we are rather than the power of who God is.

^1.13 God cares not what you call Him. God knows who He is. It is man who has known not who he is, and it is through me that this knowing can be returned. This is simply the way it is. It is not about being right or being wrong, about one being more and others less. This is simply the way to sameness of being, to the reunion of all, from the holiest of the holy to the lowliest of the lowly.

^1.14 Had any of the holy men and women who walked the way of the world since my time learned, accepted, and lived the teachings that have brought you to this point which I now would like to lead you beyond, the world would be a different place. Have I not called you to a new time in which the conditions of learning exist no more? In which the suffering and death that have obscured that love is the answer are banished, rejected, and a new world of love accepted in their place?

^1.15 You are all beloved sons and daughters of love itself, no matter what you call that love. You all are equally beloved. That you give your devotion to one religious tradition or another matters not. That you accept that I am he who can lead you beyond your life of misery to new life matters absolutely.

^1.16 I am not your teacher and you are not called to follow me blindly. But you are called to follow, or succeed me. Only in this way can new life be brought to old.

^1.17 Your desire to know me has grown as you have read these words and grown closer to your Self. This is because we are One. To know me is to know your Self.

^1.18 Let us return a moment to the creation story and my acknowledgment that this creation story is occurring in each and every one of us. Let me move forward and speak a moment of Adam and Eve and the fall from paradise. Let us extend our idea of the creation story to include the creation of man and woman. Adam and Eve represent your birth into form. ^I represent your birth into what is beyond form. Adam and Eve represent what occurred within you at the beginning of the story of your creation. ^I represent what occurred within you recently, the story of your rebirth through this Course.

^1.19 The story of Adam and Eve, and the story of Jesus, are within you. As within, so without. In each of you is Adam and Eve represented in form. In each of you am I represented in form.

^1.20 The New Testament was the beginning of the new. My life represented fulfillment of scripture, of all holy writing, of all learned wisdom. In fulfillment are endings found and beginnings created.

^1.21 This fulfillment of scripture has now occurred within you. When it occurred within me, it occurred within all. It became part of the continuing story of creation, of creation acted out within the created.

^1.22 The story came after the fact. Thus the fulfillment was always part of the story of creation. It was always part of you as it was always part of me. 1.23 There is no story to project what comes next—no accomplished story. There is only scripture unfulfilled, the promise of inheritance or the threat of doom. Myth too stops short of fulfillment, of return to paradise.

^1.24 Yet this return to paradise, to your true Self and your true home, is written within you. It only needs to be lived to become real. You must accept me because I lived it and made it real for you. You must accept me because I am the part of you that can guide you beyond what I accomplished to the accomplishment of creation, and beyond creation to the story not yet written, the future not yet created. To the realization of paradise and of your true Self and true home, in a form that will take you beyond time to eternity.

^1.25 This has been spoken of as the second coming of Christ because my story goes unfulfilled without your fulfillment. It is only in your fulfillment of the continuing story of creation that my story reaches completion. It is a story whose completion cannot occur in singular form, but as with any true inheritance only in a series, only in a joining together of all of the parts of the creation story into the wholeness of the story’s end. As a story is seen to move from one element to another in an unbroken chain of events, so too is the story of creation. As history proceeds with gaps only waiting to be fulfilled in current time, so too is it with the story of creation.

^1.26 You are living history. You are living what will tomorrow be history. You are living creation. You are living what will tomorrow be the story of creation. A chain of events is merely another way of saying cause and effect. The chain of events of creation include, thus far, the movement of being into form and the movement of being beyond form. What will be realized through the secret of succession is the elevation of form.

^1.27 You can only fast from wanting by realizing what it is you desire. My forty days and forty nights on the mountain succeeded my baptism and my acknowledgment as the Son of God, and preceded my time of living as my Self in the world. So too does it with you. You long for and desire me because our story is the same. You are living my story as I lived yours. They are one story.

^1.28 Lay aside your want of other answers, other stories, and accept the story we share. The Bible and all holy texts can be seen clearly now as one creation story. One story of one beginning. One story with many promises made. Promises of inheritance and fulfillment, promises that give hints to, but never quite reveal, the secret of succession.

^1.29 I am the secret of succession, the way and the life, the beginning of the end of the story that is to be fulfilled, brought to completion and wholeness in you and in me, so that together we bring about the second coming of Christ and the elevation of the Self of form.