Teachings of Christ Mind

Good afternoon. And good afternoon to everyone who is joining us on the internet.

Well, we’ve talked before about the fact that all of you are always teaching. You might not think you are, but you are. A lot of the teaching you engage in is indirect; sneaky, in other words. You tend to set your limits with others with a tone of voice or a choice of words that say, “Mmm, you’re overstepping your boundaries there,” without saying “You’re overstepping your boundaries there.” You constantly teach each other how to behave with you, again, for the most part, indirectly.

We’ve been talking about the authority problem and the fact that it’s just another version of the origin problem. That when you are denying the Author of You, your Father, and claiming a capacity to stand in your own right and see things in your own way as you choose, you take over authorship, you steal it away from God. Or at least you pretend to, and then you convince yourself that you’re actually accomplishing it and then you believe yourself. And now, in this state of autonomy, you’re put in the position, a required position of being a teacher of your particular way of seeing things because you need others to agree with it if there’s to be any sort of harmony.

And so at the bottom line, when you have your back to the Altar and the Father is nowhere in your sight, you have to constantly be in a state of teaching, and re-teaching, and reconfirming the teaching, and influencing others in your experience. That’s the state of being, you might say. The state of being of the human condition. Teaching becomes a means of control. And you all control each other into the best semblance of order you can achieve [small laugh] while all of you are still trying to be independent.

When Paul first reached out to me and we made the connection, I told him, not immediately but within weeks because he was in a financial problem, I said to him, “Your income comes from being centered.” He had just finished a useless journey, as we talked last week, where he had attempted to express authority in a brand new way and develop a brand new idea that would control his world into a moneymaking, profitable and successful business venture. Unfortunately, as with most good plans of mice and men, it failed and he had, as we talked again about last week, his own crucifixion experience of total failure and being put in a position where he recognized that he had no personal power. And that’s what it took in order for him to say “help” and reach out.

Now, it’s interesting because as a result of my saying to him, “your income comes from being centered,” which was another way of saying, “your fulfillment comes from turning back toward the Altar,” I just didn’t use those terms, he ventured into a brand new way of being where he allowed fulfillment to unfold, rather than manipulating it into his experience. And he found peace with that. So much so, that it became utterly natural and he didn’t even think about it until one day, perhaps seven years ago, someone visiting said, “What’s the biggest change that you’ve experienced having Raj in your life?” And he hadn’t thought about it. But at that moment when he thought about it, he realized the biggest change was that he was living without fear. Here he is living without any control, living without exercising any control, making the Gift of Love that the two of us express together as a result of the joining. And so however much or however little was in the bank account was not a trigger for emotion, because he learned that his income comes from being centered, being in his peace, joining with me, and being out from that experience. This in spite of the fact that he still is reluctant to do it 100% of the time.

Now, I’m mentioning this because we’re talking about the fact that when learning occurs, change occurs. And when change occurs, you start being in the world in a new way. Not according to the mutually-agreed-upon definitions that I have referred to as ego infrastructure. And when you do that, and you find the joy of it and you find the peace of it, you will still find others in your experience who want to teach you, convince you that the well-established infrastructure is still valid and you need to pay attention to it. And so teaching goes on, in Paul’s case, in interesting ways.

Someone who requested materials, some of the Raj Materials, and had not received them because there weren’t funds to be able to supply them with and Paul has learned that if there aren’t, he doesn’t try to do what is impossible and continues to make the Gift until it is possible. This person called and suggested that perhaps orders, requests for materials should be filled for those who make contributions first. And then, if there are funds left, send them to those who don’t make contributions.

Of course that is untenable, but it’s an interesting way to try to reestablish the agreed-upon definition, the financial and business infrastructure. Now the time came when some of those requests could be filled. In fact, a large number of sets of tapes were sent. And, almost immediately there was a check in the mail; not humungous but substantial. Well, now here’s another example of teaching. “I get, you get. The moment I get something from you, you’ll get something from me.” And it’s a temptation. It says, “Here is the way the infrastructure works, at least with me.” And it suggests that it will work that way for everyone else. And therefore, if there is a need for more, if it would be nice for there to be more inflow of funds so that more of the information that everyone wants could be sent out to them, all it requires is to get it out to them because they’ll send it. They then will pay for it. But you know what? It completely sidetracks the fact that one’s fulfillment comes from being centered and not from manipulation, even in the most indirect way that a quick response will create a quick payment. You see? You see how indirect? But the teaching is there.

Another suggestion is that those who make a gift by means of a credit card who say, “I would like to make a contribution monthly until I say otherwise,” that if their credit card expires and therefore the withdrawal ceases occurring, that there should be someone to call them up and knowing that they want to make a contribution, bring to their attention that their card has expired and it has ceased. And again, we’re in the realm of manipulation, manipulation of income in the guise of being friendly, in the guise of helping that individual succeed in doing what they want to do anyway. But when that happens, if that happened, the gift wouldn’t come because there was an impulse in the giver to give, but because someone else had reminded them of their lapse of memory. It’s very tempting, because all of you are familiar with the already established ego infrastructure, to slip back into it with a sort of spiritual slant to it, if you see what I mean, which means that in actuality you’re abandoning spirituality and you’re just functioning in the mutually-agreed-upon definitions with a slightly new set of words to describe what you’re doing.

This is just an example of how you are all teaching in indirect ways, and even with the highest motives. The infrastructure that is firmly established says, “You get this for that. Tit for tat.” It’s a barter. It’s a bargain. It’s not a gift. Love is a Gift.

And as you turn toward the Altar and as you open yourself up for learning, what’s the fundamental lesson going to be? Love. It’s going to be how to learn to embody Love, and that is indeed going to require you to be from a new foundation, from your connection with your Source so that you are reflecting and glorifying God. Embodying God, embodying Truth, embodying Love quote “in the world” unquote, meaning right where everyone else is still stuck in the rut. Right where everyone else has a devotion to the very thing that they need to abandon, to let go of, and explore the possibility of living without. To explore the possibility of living without exercising authority, but rather yielding to God and His Authorship of everything that identifies your fulfillment.

Now, here’s another way in which you teach each other, and that’s your choice of words. You talk entirely differently with a new lover than you do with an old friend, and you convey different things with a new lover than you do with an old friend.

[laughing] Paul knows that his name is Paul and he knew that when his mother said, “Paul,” she was talking to him. But he also knew that when she said, “Paul Norman Tuttle, ” ohhhh! That meant something different. Different choice of words, a different way of saying it.

Today, we’re going to break the usual format of passing the microphone. I want you all to read along, but I’m going to read from the text as Bill Thetford typed it before any editing was done to it. And I’m doing it for a reason. We’re on the subject of right teaching and right learning.

You will find as I read today that there are different words, and you will find that the difference is that the words in the 1st and 2nd edition have been couched in, what shall I say, the high style of a significant document that fits in a library of significant documents that have withstood the test of time. And yet, you know what? It isn’t the order of the words and it isn’t the preciseness of the words that makes the Course of value. What makes the Course of value is the fact that I was talking to someone. I was talking to Helen Schucman. And I was talking to Bill Thetford. It was a communication. Not a dictation of a script. Not a dictation of a book to withstand the test of time. What makes the Course of value is that it demonstrates that I am, and that I am in relationship to each of you just as I was with Helen and just as I was with Bill.

And the value is in the relationship, and not in the words or how they’re couched. And so, I want you to read along. I do not want you to become distracted by the differences you see. Just notice them, but pay attention to what I’m sharing. And pay attention to the fact that I was talking to two human beings who were willing to listen thereby establishing our Brotherhood now as a Living Thing—mine with them and mine with you—and that I won’t talk to you, as you can tell right now, in a stilted fashion, but as a Brother talking to a Brother or a Sister, talking to another Christ who has forgotten that he or she is the Christ. Reminding you of it. Inspiring you to embrace it as a possibility and explore it. And to be with me as a Brother on equal footing as you rediscover Who You Are.

Meaning the human level.

There we go with the existing ego infrastructures regarding business. Money is but one of its many reflections—the root of all evil—and is a reasonably representative example of the kind of thinking which stems from it.

Be patient. We’ll come to the part that’s in the book.

There you go. Teaching. Influencing. And influencing for the purpose of affirming and establishing ego infrastructure; detailed complex little rules that govern how things work, and what to do if they aren’t working that way, and having four or five backup plans to replace the existing one under a variety of different circumstances, et cetera. And, not only that, you have to teach all of this to someone else so that they know how to behave in order to be abiding by the agreed-upon definitions and have some sort of harmony.

So to profess is to identify with an idea, an infrastructure, and offer the idea to others to be their own. To be their own! Now, if that’s not an imposition, I don’t know what it is. And if that’s not a practice of an exercise of control, I don’t know what it is.

Now you’ll find what’s in the Text.

And I’m going to add this: humanly speaking

And when I say “a good teacher,” I means it in the best of terms.

Now, humanly speaking, none of you really consistently brings into play the best of being a good teacher because, for the most part, you tend not to believe in the students to whom you’re offering the ideas. You see them as lacking or negligent or ignorant or uncaring or insensitive or unwise, and therefore needing your wise counsel to be pumped down their throat so as to turn them into something worthy. That’s not believing in your students. That’s not called being a good teacher.

A good teacher looks at his Brother and sees the Christ there, sees the potential there, and keeps that potential in the foreground as he illuminates ideas. He sees the student as capable of understanding, even though he’s currently ignorant. Capable of understanding math. Capable of understanding how to reach those fingers around to the right frets on the guitar so that the chord comes out on pitch and clear. He constantly sees the ultimate there as he helps illuminate the student’s capacity to let it in and embrace it and own it.

Continuing …

When you first said, “Father, I’d rather see it my way,” and undertook to imaginatively embrace an entirely different interpretation of some part of the Kingdom of Heaven, you experienced a change. And the first change you experienced was a loss of infiniteness. You experienced the tininess of the stance that you had taken in order to have an idea of your own and apply it to some part of the Kingdom of Heaven. That was a major change.

And as I’ve said before, the result of that was an uneasy feeling because that stance is unnatural to a Child of God, to an Expression of God, to the visibility and tangibility of God. And so, your ever-present Sanity provided a warning, an awareness that this was unnatural. And then you became afraid because you were alone, because you were tiny, because you were separate. And that brought up what you would call an instinct of self-preservation to maintain that isolated point of view and to overcome the fear.

So, that was your first experience of change, because change is not normal to the Divine State of Mind that is the Father’s embodied in You.

Now I’m reading again:

Meaning the human and the Divine foundation.

Well, you say, “Not even a little bit?” No, not even a little bit. If you’re not looking toward the Altar, you can’t see the Altar. It’s simple. If you’re not looking at something, you can’t see it. If you have your back to it, you can’t see it. And whatever is going on there will not register with you. And so there is no transfer.

That’s why I brought out last week that there is no such thing as an actually separate ego. There is only the Divine One that you are, the Christ that you are, pretending that you aren’t the Christ and suffering from that belief. But everything that the ego seems to be accomplishing, even though it’s just an empty packet of imaginative nothing, anything that it seems to accomplish is accomplished by the Divine One that you are by your bringing into play what is Real about you, while consciously denying that the Divine One that you are is doing it.

So the ego is never going to really become educated and finally become divine. It’s the Divine One that you are who wants to go Home. It’s the Divine One that you are that feels the impetus to no longer tolerate suffering, because something in you knows that it’s illegitimate for you. It is the Divine One in you, you could say, returning Home. Or you could say it’s the Divine One in you that you are letting come forward more fully in your conscious experience of yourself.

I’m reading again …

In other words, the only thing that can exist in that imaginative nothing is imaginative conflict and nothing else.

With a small “s.”

“But, Father, I’d rather see it my way.” That is in opposition to the Father. And everything that follows from your decision to see things your way is going to be conflicted.

I’m reading again …

So again, don’t think that your ego is becoming enlightened and somehow being transformed so that it will be able to get back into the Kingdom of Heaven as an actual divine ego. The ego is nothing but an infrastructure of thoughts and ideas that are used to secure, even more firmly, independence.

Continuing …

Because you are so closely identified with the ego, it will seem to you as though you and ego are making progress and are becoming enlightened.

But here’s the beauty of it. What’s really happening is that the Divine One that you are is not being obscured as completely and as skillfully, and the Divine One that you are, the Christ that you are right now is showing up more and more, and in the process the ego is dissolving. The infrastructures that have held together your so-called authority and your so-called power is yielding because there’s a shift of attention and a shift of intention within you to find that Place of Excellence in you that is divine. And let It be magnified because you are choosing to Love It more than the mutually-agreed-upon definitions, the ego infrastructures, and the attempt to control because there’s a promise of success.

Continuing …

And this is a key point. Waking up is not a matter of destroying the ego. How can you destroy what is nothing but a collection of imaginative thoughts that never had any actual existence? The ultimate reason why learning is perceived as frightening is because learning does lead to the relinquishment (not destruction) of the ego to the Light—the capital “L” Light—of the Soul.

You see, I don’t try to destroy your egos. You don’t waste your time on nothing. I don’t waste my time on nothing. I don’t try to get rid of what you think you made out of nothing more than empty packets to which you’ve added the Christ of you and you said, “Oh! There’s a real ego!”, all the while choosing to ignore the fact that you added what was Real to nothing and filled the void with that which was Real and that’s why it seems like there is something there.

How their infrastructure.

Now don’t let your little egos get too happy here. The only way real change will occur is when you say, “Father, what is the Truth here? Father, how does this work? Father, even if the way things really work goes against the mutually-agreed-upon definitions, the ruts that are so well-established, even if it’s going to make me look like an oddball, I want to know how do things really work? How can I be in harmony with Reality, rather than the way I think things ought to be?”

Continuing …

You see? “Well, if I don’t allow for change, everything will be perfectly stable. And if everything is perfectly stable, that will be a manifestation of the orderliness and harmony of God.” You see?

But that’s sort of like wanting to get in touch with your Guidance and knowing that your mind has to become still, and so you learn to meditate and you learn how to go into the silence. You learn how to experience your mind being still, and then you don’t allow any Movement whatsoever. When the fact is that communion with your Guide, turning toward the Altar and inquiring of the Father what the Truth is, is going to mean there will be Movement in the stillness. But if you’re going to hold everything to perfect silence, the disallowing for the Movement of God, the Movement of Love, the Movement of Truth, to register with you, you will not hear anything and you will not feel the Father’s Love. And you will not learn anything new.

Continuing …

In other words, you’ve made it up.

When you’re suffering, you are experiencing a call for correction. You’re experiencing a call for change. When you’re going through a crucifixion, having fallen flat on not your face but your derrière, you’re experiencing a call for correction, a call for change.

And you know what? You know what I want to teach you today? Change is good. Change is something to be desired, because the change we’re talking about will constitute the instantaneous relief and release from suffering because you’re not reaffirming the mutually-agreed-upon definitions, the ego infrastructure that can be nothing other than conflicted and unpleasant.

This is utterly simple, isn’t it? You cannot undo this by doing nothing and not changing. Truth is utterly simple.

Continuing …

This is what I said to Helen. This is what I said to Bill. This is what I say to you. If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system, what you made-up, everything that you’ve made-up, and open it to me, I will correct it very gently and lead you Home, because… this is not in the book, because I love you and you’re my Brother and my Sister. You are fellow Christs and you and I deserve to be with each other in full recognition of Who We Are.

Well, what’s the best thinking that I can offer you. The best thinking that I can offer you is whatever encourages you to be willing to abandon the mutually-agreed-upon definitions and step into the void, where you think you don’t know the answers because you didn’t make them up, so that you might find that the answers are already there and you knew them from the beginning. Those are the best thoughts I can give to you.

Dare, dare to step into what your ego calls the unknown, but which to the Divine You has always been known, so that you might become once again conscious of what you have always known and wake up. And don’t be afraid of the gargoyles that the ego throws up at you when you do that.

And don’t be discouraged by the attempts of those around you who would, in their best and greatest caring, encourage you to once again re-embrace the mutually-agreed-upon definitions, the business infrastructures, the infrastructures of the psychology of relationships and how they work, how they ought to work that somebody made up. Don’t be discouraged when the invitation to come back into the old patterns is made.

Continuing …

The hope that one’s students will no longer need him.

All of its own infrastructures.

These infrastructures.

In other words, it doesn’t have a capacity to make a choice at all because it’s been made-up out of whole cloth, out of nothing. A little packet of nothing that you poured into space and then added a little or a lot of something Real, the Divine One that you are, and thus apparently activated these magic invisible crystals of nothing and made something that never existed before, and actually doesn’t even exist now because the only thing enliving it is a little bit of something Real you added to it while ignoring completely the fact that you added to it something that was Real.

Make this choice.

Your origin is the Father.

Now, listen to me.

These words are real meanings expressed by me to Helen and Bill and thereby demonstrate, or embody, quote “in the world” unquote my function with everyone. That’s what makes this Course valuable. Not how the words are put together. Not whether they’re put together so beautifully that they’ll withstand the test of time in a library of great books. But because it conveys to you a Relationship that’s Real, a Relationship that arises out of my Love for You, not puny little piss-ant egos, but the Christ that each one of You is right now! And it’s escaping your notice.

And you deserve for it not to escape your notice. It’s too wonderful not to be conscious of. So I’ll give you a nudge and a support and a kick in the butt, but always with Love. Never in a way that will discourage you truly. So that you don’t forget to be inquisitive and you don’t forget to be open to the fuller Meaning of your Self. And I will do this until you remember Who You Are. And the moment you remember Who You Are, together we will rejoice. And I won’t be your teacher. I will be your Brother, your full-fledged Brother whom you know intimately infinitely. And so together we will experience our union. We will recognize ourselves in each other.

And then, you might say, we will learn of God, because both of us will be fully available to the Movement of Creation in Its Infinite Meanings with none of it escaping our notice. And together we will be able to stand in awe of the incredibleness of the Movement of God that we’re not separate from in any way.

Continuing …

… what?

You teach each other what you believe. Why? So that you can find mutual agreement with what you believe, and in finding mutual agreement you get confirmation of what you believe, and who you believe you are becomes strengthened in your mind and the one you have convinced has become your follower.

Continuing …

It may look like I’m a Teacher, but I’m your Brother. And I’m just being your Brother. I’m just loving you. And Love inspires that in you which is Divine to remember what it knows so that that in you which is Divine can come out of the closet, stand forth, and be experienced and owned and embodied.

Continuing …

Or we could say your worth is being established by God in every moment because You are the Ever New Living Presence of a Current and Living God. Creation is now, not off in the distant past. Your worth was established by God.

Hmmm. You say, “Well, why would I dispute that?” Well, you dispute it by not checking in with God, by not thinking about God, by not thinking with God, as you engage in the simplest of relationships in your day.

You dispute the fact that your worth was established by God in every attempt you make to establish it in the eyes of your brothers, instead of saying, “to hell with what they think,” and letting your already existing worth shine forth for no good reason. Not to teach anybody anything. But because you have no pleasure other than letting the capital “M” Meaning embodied right where you are by God as an Expression of Himself to be the only thing present right where you are, and letting the chips fall where they may.

But when there’s Love, it isn’t really called patience. It’s just called caring enough to express the Truth until it registers, because you know that there’s nothing better than having the Truth register and be known, because the Truth sets you free from your illusions. Teachers must be patient and repeat their lessons until they are learned.

You see? I’m not here to influence you. I’m not here to control you. In fact, if I tried to control you, it would bring your ego into play which is nothing more than a defense mechanism. So if I want you to make fast progress, I will not try to enforce anything on you at all. And that’s the one thing your ego can’t defend itself against. And it’s the one thing that allows Truth to remain where it can be seen by the Divine One that you are, because the ego has gotten no trigger that says, “Throw up a smoke screen and cloud this Truth from sight.”

Continuing …

And of course those are all the things the ego does. It do-s things, thinks things, wishes things, and makes/makes-up things. But nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth.

Again, you can’t have a delusion about nothing. You can only ever be deluded about something. You can only ever have a false belief about something. So when it’s said, “this world is an illusion,” it’s a misperception of something that actually exists. It’s a delusion you’re experiencing about something Real.

Continuing …

That’s its whole function, is to confirm itself. And it has to do that because it doesn’t really exist. And in order for it to seem to exist, it is on a forever quest to confirm itself by convincing others that it exists and getting their confirmation so as to strengthen its belief in itself. It’s a tremendous amount of work creating these infrastructures, these mutually-agreed-upon definitions. And you have no idea how much energy you’re expending trying to keep them active, not only in your mind, but in everybody else’s mind so that they can cooperate with it and confirm it.

And not only that. The more complex it gets, the harder it is for you to remember all the rules you’ve made up regarding who you are and how things should work. And as a result, things begin to fall apart at the seams because you are trying to keep too many balls juggling. The ego tries to exploit all situations into forms of praise or self-confirmation for itself in order to overcome its doubts.

Or, as long as you can keep those balls goin’ around.

Which is all that the ego has been trying to do.

You all are so significantly different from the ego definition you’ve made-up about yourself. All of you have had the opportunity to have a magnet and a piece of paper and some iron filings, and to have put the iron filings on the paper and put the magnet underneath it and to shake it a little bit and watch the iron filings gather together in a pattern that show the lines of the magnetic field. And you say, “Wow! Look at the magnetic field!” Well, you know what? You haven’t seen the magnetic field yet. All you’ve seen is where the magnetic filing … where the filings have gathered. If you were really seeing the magnetic field, you would see the magnetic field extended above the paper and underneath the paper and as a three-dimensional shape, if you will, of energy that you still can’t see.

The energy is so much more than the pattern that the filings let you see. Do you see what I’m saying? The Energy of Spirit is so much more than what you see. And what you see is not the Energy, but the visibility and tangibility of it.

So, please walk out of here today, or for those of you at home, turn off your computers and go out, and be open to, be desirous of experiencing, be less defended against that of You which is so much more than the current definition that you’re letting yourself see.

Beware of teachers who teach with authority. Beware of teachers whose intent is to force change in you. Beware of teachers whose teaching process invades you, and coerces you, because those teachers think they’re egos. And what they’re teaching can only confirm the ego infrastructures; the experience of existence that one has with his or her back to the Altar.

And then, beware of being one of those kinds of teachers. If you don’t know what the Truth is from God, keep your mouth shut and don’t teach anyone anything. There would be amazing growth if every one of you did that because immediately there would be silence. And there would be silence for such a long time that it would become intolerable to you because it is impossible for you to not be expressive.

But if you’re going to be true to the willingness not to teach something God hasn’t disclosed to you, you will find yourself, like someone who’s not breathing, needing a breath. And you will come to the point where you will say, “God, I really do want to hear You! I really do want to know the Truth because I can’t hold my breath any longer! I can’t be silent any longer!”

And you will become defenseless, and the penetration will occur and inspiration will occur and you will have something to talk about and express. But you know what? It won’t be to try to convince anybody. You know what? It might come out as a laugh that lasts three weeks. A laugh of such Joy that you would never want to stop laughing. And after three weeks, those around you will have begun to laugh, and they will have laughed and it will extend on out. Because you will have been teaching, and you might not even have noticed that you were teaching, because you were just being the Presence of God.

And I promise you something. We can get together for a millennia of Sunday afternoons and I will never run dry of ways to encourage you to look with innocence, to look with fresh eyes, to look for the unexpected, to look for that which goes beyond all of the mutually-agreed-upon definitions and the habits with which you’ve looked at everything that keep you from seeing with new eyes. I can do it! And you know what? I can do it happily. I will never get tired. That’s what kind of teacher I am.

You know what? That’s the kind of teacher you all are, if you’ll just remember to bring that into play. And remember you’re always teaching. Do you wanna be a bad teacher or a good teacher? Well, I want you to experience a connection with God where being a teacher of any kind becomes less important than being the place where God shines through because that is such an inspiring and wonderful, and I’m going to say, mind-boggling experience.

I must say it again. WOW! And I look forward to being with you next week. I actually look forward to your being with me a lot more during the week. Know that I’m with you. I’m just waiting.