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We’re starting a new section entitled:
The Reward of Teaching1
And in the first edition and the second edition, the wording was changed and I feel it’s important to share the difference. It reads:
We have already learned that everyone teaches and teaches all the time. You may have taught well, and yet you may not have learned how to accept the comfort of your teaching.
Now, when I was dictating this to Helen, I did not say, “We have already learned that everyone teaches and teaches all the time.” And I did not say, “You may have taught well.”
Here’s what I said:
You have taught well, and yet you have not learned how to ACCEPT the comfort of your teaching.
Now I shared this because as I said it to Helen, I was speaking directly to her about her. And it was an abrupt shift in context. In the first edition, a segway was given:
We have already learned that everyone teaches and teaches all the time. You may have taught well, and yet you may not have learned how to accept the comfort of your teaching.
Now, that reads well for subsequent readers of the Course but I want it to remain as pointed as it is in the Sparkly Book, the way I said it to Helen:
You have taught well, and yet you have not learned how to ACCEPT the comfort of your teaching.
Now, I’m going to be very frank: Anyone who has studied the Course, and anyone who has been in any way involved in teaching it or sharing it with others, with explanation, this statement would apply to you:
You have taught well, and yet you have not learned how to ACCEPT the comfort of your teaching.
Now the reason this is true—and its part of the meat and potatoes of this whole section we’re reading—the reason I say that is because if you have not joined with the Holy Spirit and shifted your allegiance to the Holy Spirit so that you are in communion with … so completely in communion with the Holy Spirit, so completely that you’re no longer holding yourself apart as someone leaning into or depending upon the Holy Spirit, then you still have the comfort of what you’ve been teaching to be embodied, embraced, and to have moved you into a new experience of your identity—no longer an orphan, period.
So …
You have taught well, and yet you have not learned how to ACCEPT the comfort of your teaching.
You haven’t embraced it completely enough to have done this most difficult thing called letting go of control—of abandoning the practice and exercise of control. You haven’t arrived at the point where, in doing so, you find that chaos has not occurred, but rather, pure peace, pure safety, pure security in a context of living love that is the environment of your being and of all things.
Now…
If you will consider what you have taught, and how alien it is to what you thought you knew, you will be compelled to recognize that your Teacher…
that being the Holy Spirit…
came from beyond your thought system, and so could look upon it fairly, and perceive it was untrue. And He must have done so from the basis of a very different thought system, and one with NOTHING in common with yours. For certainly what He has taught, and what you have taught through Him, have nothing in common with what you taught before He came. And the results have been to bring peace where there was pain, and suffering has disappeared, to be replaced by joy.
The reason it’s important to understand this, is because your experience of the Holy Spirit communicating with you, addressing you in language that you can understand and that means something and is transformational to you, this is experienced in the very same place where you have done all of your orphan-minded thinking, you would say, that you hear the Holy Spirit in your mind and you think in and with your mind. And so, hearing the Holy Spirit is occurring in the same place. And yet, what you hear is entirely different from what you, as the orphan you thought you were—taught, believed and “understood.”
So, it can seem as though you’re experiencing two selves: One, yours—the orphan you’ve always been, who’s learning new wonderful things—and another Mind, another Presence in the same place. Another Self that thinks differently from you and yet speaks with you, embraces you in a way that you haven’t been embraced before and treats you in a way that transforms you without causing you to feel great guilt.
Now, what I have taught you as we have been moving through this book, is what the book has told us: That the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind. Therefore, this is not another self, let’s say, a self that is part of the Holy Trinity, which is very different from mankind, the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind. So it would seem that in your mind there are two selves: This One that teaches like you’ve never taught before, and the you that you think you are who takes up most of the space in your mind with all of your thinking.
Why is this important? It’s important because salvation lies in a simple shift from where you’re giving your allegiance—what you’re valuing. It’s not complicated. It doesn’t require complex learning processes. It constitutes a simple behavior and the most significant one is the easiest one. And that is the practice of neglect. Neglect is effortless and it’s the one thing essential to Waking up.
What do you neglect? You neglect to value and practice thinking. You neglect to make so much noise yourself that you can’t hear anything, which then makes it possible for you to hear effortlessly.
Now, it’s time for you to stop having an “understanding” of the principles of A Course In Miracles. It’s time for you to be through having these understandings that you can easily share and rationalize about. It’s time for the intellectuality of the Course to be neglected because it’s essential for what you’ve been learning to be embodied.
Now, does that mean through effort of your own? No. It means by indulging in the two-step: Stepping back, hesitating … stepping back, not acting immediately out of habit, and asking, “What is the truth here?” Asking of the Holy Spirit, asking of That which is nothing more than your right Mind which, as long as you are pretending to be an orphan, is the Voice for God—the Voice for Truth. The Holy Spirit in you is the Voice for God—the Voice for Truth. It’s That of you which you’ve disowned because you’ve said “Hey, I would rather have charge of things and make things happen on my own and become somebody by virtue of what I’ve done.” That’s all.
You have taught freedom, but you have not learned how to be free.
You see, you can talk a good talk but you haven’t learned how to embody it and actually be free. You still haven’t found it of more value than anything else to be constantly enquiring of the Holy Spirit, to know how to be, what to say: “What is happening? What’s the truth here?”
I have told Paul, “Let me respond to everything.”
Now, I have the same function as the Holy Spirit, whether it’s with Paul, or any of you. And so, when I say, “Let me respond to everything,” I’m not asking him as he sometimes believes, to defer to someone else—to become nothing himself, and just always be the mouthpiece or the actor, acting out someone else’s desires. I’m not. That is not what I am when I say, “Let me respond to everything.”
I am saying, “Be Still and let me reveal your responses, the you that you divinely Are. Let me share those with you. Let me guide you in using your own true voice and your own true mind, to be in your daily experience so that you might come into a feeling of less awkwardness around this, so that you come into a feeling of its naturalness, so that you don’t resist it or feel that it’s not really you, or it’s better than you.”
The point is that you have to let down your intent. You have to withdraw your intent to enact things, authorize things, be the cause of things, so that you might be able to join with the Holy Spirit or with me, and have your true Being and your real Mind illumined for you so that you might lean into It—It being the real You. And as a result of that, feel the naturalness of It and allow yourself ultimately to stay there without asking for my help. This is the point and this is when the comfort of your teaching will be experienced by you.
You have taught freedom, but you have not learned how to be free. We once said, “By their fruits ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves.” For it is certain that you judge yourself according to your teaching. The ego’s teaching produces immediate results because its decisions are immediately accepted as YOUR choice.
You accept them as YOUR choice. And that’s why you have the visibility and tangibility immediately of the ego’s thought system—belief system, etc.
But, if you turn to the Holy Spirit and ask: “What is the truth here? What should I say here? What is the appropriate way for me to be right now?” And you let that flow, you will have the immediate results because you’re willing to say and acknowledge that it’s your choice. That’s the point! That’s the shift we’re talking about. Where, when you listen for the truth and you express it, you don’t treat it as though it’s some third person event, but rather a first person event. And they are your words and they are your choice.
You say, and Paul does too, he says: “I want to know the truth above and beyond my pet theories and best concepts; I want to know the truth.” And I share the truth and he hears it and shares it and lets it be the truth that Raj has shared and does not get the comfort of the truth he has shared that he would get if he claimed it as his choice, if he knew that it was his choice. That the silly thing is; that he asked to know what the truth was. He wants to know the truth—that is his choice. You see?
And you do the same thing. And it’s very important when the truth is revealed to you that you acknowledge that it’s your experience of truth. Not someone else’s. And that to know that truth is your choice. And the truth that is being said will have its instantaneous immediate results when…you…let…it…be… your choice. Because that’s the way it works. When it’s your choice, you’ve got it. When it’s your choice, you get it.
Everyone says they wish they were wealthy. Well they don’t wish they were wealthy because if that was their choice, [snaps fingers] they would instantly be wealthy.
The ego’s teaching produces immediate results because its decisions are immediately accepted…
… I’m going to add, by you …
… as YOUR choice. And this acceptance means that you are willing to judge yourself accordingly. Cause and effect are very clear in the ego’s thought system because all your learning has been directed towards ESTABLISHING the relationship between them. And would you not have faith in what you have so diligently taught yourself to believe?
Of course, you’re too proud to do otherwise. All orphans are.
Yet remember how much care you have exerted in choosing it’s witnesses, and avoiding those which spoke for the cause of truth and ITS effects.
So what is this saying? It’s saying that you have to pay attention. It’s mandatory that you pay attention to how you’re using your mind so that you are not using it against what you want and thereby denying you the experience of your Birthright as a holy Son or Daughter of God and of the Kingdom of Heaven that is what you are in the middle of.
Does not the fact that you have not learned what you have taught …
… this meaning, the truth that you’ve been teaching, the truth that you’ve heard by virtue of doing the two-step and listening and hearing …
Does not the fact that you have not learned what you have taught show you that you do not perceive the Sonship as one?
You say … “Well, Raj said it.” And some of you may say, “Well, Paul said it.”
If you’ve heard the truth and you recognize the truth, it’s yours. It’s not someone else’s. And yet, the fact that Raj said it and Paul voiced it and you heard it and you claimed it, that demonstrates that the Sonship is One. Because you’ve let it be One. You haven’t held part of it away from you.
“Well, that’s what Raj said. I know it’s the truth but it’s the truth that Raj said.”
You keep it at a distance. It needs to be embodied, incorporated. It needs to be owned. You need to let your mind be changed in the sense of recognizing yourself in a declaration of truth that comes out of your mouth as a result of Revelation. It’s that simple and its that beautiful.
Does not the fact that you have not learned what you have taught show you that you do not perceive the Sonship as one? And does it not also show you that you do not regard YOURSELF as one? For it is impossible to teach successfully wholly WITHOUT conviction, and it is equally impossible that conviction be OUTSIDE of you.
Yeah … I know. If you let the truth come from the Holy Spirit—that which is nothing more than your right Mind—and you let it come through your mouth and it is beautiful and it is healing and it is incredible … well, that’s going to say something about you, isn’t it. That might disclose your holiness, which, you’re not sure you really want—you’re not sure you want anybody to think that well of you. They might start leaning on you, they might start making demands on you and so on and so forth.
They may give you credit which you would appreciate, but in giving you the credit, they may start to lean on you and that part of it is not so hot. So you keep it in the third person. You keep it at a distance and you don’t let it show as you, you don’t let yourself feel it as you. And that’s the call. That’s the shift.
You see, it’s not just an intellectual shift of ideas where you suddenly grasp the truth as opposed to the error. It’s a shift in you that affects your experience of your identity. It renders you holy and if you allow it, you will embrace your holiness with gratitude, you see? …with embrace, without resistance, in a way that allows the experience to be identified to you as you, thus changing your experience of yourself.
You could never have taught freedom unless you DID believe in it. And it must be that what you taught came from YOURSELF. And yet, this Self you clearly do not KNOW…
this capital “S” Self …
And yet, this Self you clearly do not KNOW, and do not recognize …
Again:
And yet, this Self you clearly do not KNOW, and do not recognize It even though It functions.
Your holiness, your divine mindedness is ever present and always functioning. And it’s always functioning as you experiencing yourself as that. But you’ve lost the direct experience of it because you have chosen for awhile—too long awhile—to play at being an orphan who has a capacity to do things on its own.
What functions must be THERE.
If you ask the Holy Spirit a question and you get an answer, the Holy Spirit must be there. Simple. Now, if the Holy Spirit responds and you hear it, and the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind, then you have clearly experienced yourSelf, even though you don’t recognize It as such. And so it’s necessary to reiterate it as I’m doing tonight. And it’s necessary for you to remind yourselves so that you don’t easily forget and you can keep doing what will promote your Awakening rather than doing what will prevent it.
What functions must be THERE. And it is only if you deny what it has DONE that you could possibly deny its presence.
This is a course in how to know yourself.
That’s it!
This is a course in how to know yourself. You HAVE taught what you are, but have not let what you are teach YOU.
You do … even when you’re acting as an orphan, you do express love. Love is something the ego, the orphan, is incapable of expressing. Love doesn’t exist in it. But even though you’re claiming to be an orphan, you do express love. But you haven’t let the love that you’ve expressed teach you. You haven’t been willing to acknowledge that that love is divine, that it has its Source in God. And that it’s expression through you is an expression of God through you. And that’s why when it is genuinely expressed it heals.
And then you say, “It was a miracle. God performed a miracle.” See, as though you weren’t involved. Oh, course, you don’t want to be too involved in that kind of thing, you know. But you don’t want to suffer sin, disease and death. So you’ve got to become clear and you’ve got to stop standing on both sides of the fence. That’s what this is about.
You have been very careful to avoid the obvious, and not to see the REAL cause and effect relationship that is perfectly apparent.
You have been very careful to avoid the obvious…
the obvious is that you’re the Son of God or the Daughter of God. And you haven’t not wanted …
to see the REAL cause and effect relationship that is perfectly apparent.
… in the Son or Daughter of God.
Yet within you is EVERYTHING you taught. What can it be that has NOT learned it? It must be this that is REALLY outside yourself, not by your own projection, but in TRUTH.
So …
What can it be that has NOT learned it?
Well, it has to be this fanciful sense of selfhood—of independent selfhood—that doesn’t really exist in actuality. And that’s why it must be outside yourself. You see? And it’s not outside yourself by your own projection. It’s outside of you because it has to be outside of you. It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist, therefore, its being outside of you is not a projection. It is the truth.
And it is this that you have taken in that is NOT you. What you accept into your minds does not REALLY change them. Illusions are but beliefs in what is not there. And the seeming conflict between truth and illusion can only be resolved by separating yourself from the ILLUSION, and NOT from truth.
So, how do you separate yourself from the illusion? By not creating the illusion through continued thinking and reasoning that starts from a faulty premise.
There’s only one way to separate yourself from illusion and that is, to neglect to energize and seem to create a false sense of self with rights and capacities, abilities that it couldn’t possibly have because God didn’t create it.
And how do you do that? You do that, as I said last week, by shutting up, becoming silent. In the silence, the conscious awareness that you Are, continues to be what it Is, the paying of attention—attentiveness. Attentiveness, you could say, is inquisitiveness. It’s an aliveness, an awakeness to Something. And in that attentive silence, the Movement of Creation that has been going on constantly, can register with you. Truth can register with you. You will call it Revelation. That’s how you separate yourself from illusion.
You join with the Holy Spirit by neglecting to energize the ego you thought you were, the ego that you have been taught that you are. Hmmm… that means coming humbly. You see? Arrogance doesn’t exist in the quietness of your being. Arrogance, authoritativeness, willfulness does not exist in the silence—in the silence that is an attentive conscious mind.
Your teaching has already done this, for the Holy Spirit is part of YOU. Created by God, …
Created by God, He left neither God nor His creation. He …
the Holy Spirit …
is both God AND you, as you are God and Him together. For God’s answer to the separation added more to you than you tried to take away. He protected both your creations and you together, keeping one with you …
Paul: I’m sorry …
keeping one with you what you would exclude.
This is important.
He …
the Holy Spirit …
is both God AND you, as you are God and Him …
the Holy Spirit …
together.
Now, I’ve said before, that you are not God, but God is all there is of you. Therefore, where you are, God is all there Is. You see, there’s a unity and an integrity: You, the Holy Spirit and God are One. And that One is God. The incredible perfection of Being, the incredible perfection of all existence becomes available to you to experience when you let you, the Holy Spirit and God be all there Is, and that being God.
What does that mean? It simply means that you neglect to reenergize and reinforce your thinking, all of the past results of your thinking, all of your memory and you say, “I know nothing of myself. I never have known anything of truth of myself. And as a result, my experience of being the Son of God has been a troubled one, a difficult one, a painful one, a sick one, and I don’t want to have that experience any more. And so this me, who I have tried to build up into a big voice, is going to become silent and just be the presence of Mind that can recognize things. And I’m going to let the silence endure until it’s filled with what God is filling it up with, until everything that God has been filling it up with registers with me.” That’s your prayer. That’s the practice. And it’s practicing this that will bring you back into the comfort of your teaching, the one that you’re not yet experiencing, but you need to be, you should be, you deserve to be.
Will you yield to God? Will you defer to that which is nothing more than your right Mind? When I ask the question, it sounds a little silly. Will you be willing to defer to that which is your right Mind? “Well, yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Well, why aren’t you?
But that’s the call. And so, instead of pretending that you know everything, you need to start asking, “What is everything?” You need to become curious again, full of vibrant attentiveness and expectation. You won’t find that as long as you’re looking to yourself and relying upon yourself. And life is not going to be joyful.
But life is going to be joyful because more and more individuals are getting it. And as a result, more and more individuals are willing to lean into their Source, lean into their right Mind, lean into the Brotherhood, do exactly the opposite of what has caused an experience of orphanhood, which is separation—a holding of oneself apart. You see, that’s where the neglect comes in. Neglect to reinforce that. Neglect to value it.
What you accept into your minds does not REALLY change them. Illusions are but beliefs in what is not there. And the seeming conflict between truth and illusion can only be resolved by separating yourself from the ILLUSION, and NOT from truth.
And again:
Your teaching has already done this, for the Holy Spirit is part of YOU. Created by God, He left neither God nor His creation. He is both God AND you, as you are God and Him together. For God’s answer to the separation added more to you than you tried to take away.
Such love, such love that you are constantly being held in, nurtured by and kept eternal while you pretend to be a mortal enjoying the thrill and the challenge of getting the most that you can before you die, and becoming the most that you can before you die.
He protected both your creations and you together, keeping one with you what you would exclude. And they will take the place of what you took in to replace them. They are quite real, as part of the Self you do not know.
The Self that you claim not to be, the Self that is the holy Son of God, that you would rather nobody knew you were. You see?
And they communicate to you through the Holy Spirit…
your creations …
and their power and gratitude to you for their creation they offer gladly to your teaching of yourself, who is their home.
You see? Your teaching of yourself … your teaching of yourself is your accepting the comfort of your teaching. Everything is teaching you about yourself, because everything is the visibility and tangibility of your Individuality. And your Individuality is the Presence of God.
Come on … this week please … please be willing to embrace your holiness. Please stop denying it. Please stop resisting it. Please stop covering it up.
Now, being holy is not a behavior. So you don’t cover it up by a different … you don’t be holy by adopting a new behavior. You be holy by neglecting to use and reinforce the orphan mentality. You stop covering it up by engaging in the two-step. You stop covering it up by letting yourself be in your right Mind. And you let yourself be in your right Mind by what? By desiring to Know from It. That’s how. You will find yourself knowing from It, if you will neglect to do so much thinking and so much talking and so much asserting.
Now you may not be too happy with what I’ve shared. It may sound like work. It may sound like work that is not very satisfying. But I’m going to ask you: How satisfying is sin, disease and death? How satisfying is it, even if you’re very young, to be able to think, “Oh, I’ve got sixty years to go before I’ll die. I have plenty of time to live.” How do you like that? You shouldn’t even have that thought in your mindset, because the holy Son of God is the direct manifestation of God and is therefore as eternal as God.
Please, again, value being Awake. Value it enough to pay attention so that you stop doing what keeps you from Waking up, so that you neglect to do what keeps you from Waking up.
And I don’t usually ask this, but I’m going to suggest and ask that you read what we’ve covered tonight at least once a day to remind you where your attention needs to be, so that you don’t get lost and so that you don’t have unnecessary misery, and so that maybe you’re lifted out of the whole frame of reference in which misery goes on, because you’ve let God’s perspective be yours, which it always has been even though you’ve been ignoring it.
I love you very much. And I will be with every single one of you this week in support of your making the shift. And I look forward to being with you next time.
T16.3 The Reward of Teaching ↩
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