ACIM Chapter 12. V. The Sane Curriculum, P 7-9

ACIM Chapter 12. V. The Sane Curriculum, P 7-9

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 7

7 I have said that the ego’s rule is, “Seek and do not find.” Translated into curricular terms this means, “Try to learn but do not succeed.” The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning will be misinterpreted, since they are all for facilitating the learning this strange curriculum is against. If you are trying to learn how not to learn, and the aim of your teaching is to defeat itself, what can you expect but confusion? Such a curriculum does not make sense. This attempt at “learning” has so weakened your mind that you cannot love, for the curriculum you have chosen is against love, and amounts to a course in how to attack yourself. A supplementary goal in this curriculum is learning how not to overcome the split that makes its primary aim believable. And you will not overcome the split in this curriculum, for all your learning will be on its behalf. Yet your mind speaks against your learning as your learning speaks against your mind, and so you fight against all learning and succeed, for that is what you want. But perhaps you do not realize, even yet, that there is something you want to learn, and that you can learn it because it is your choice to do so.

This is something I wrote some years ago.

I’m sharing it because some of you might find it familiar and maybe helpful.

When I read this, I cried in frustration. It sounded like gibberish to me. I cried out to Jesus, asking him what it meant to me. Yesterday, I spent the day going back and forth between my teachers, first feeling frustrated and angry, then asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind and feel peaceful, and then back again to my ego. I felt so discouraged with the whole thing and wondered if I could ever end this war in my mind. It didn’t feel like it could happen. By the end of the day, I felt better, but some of that discouragement was left over in my mind this morning.

I don’t know why the ego is so strong in my mind right now. Maybe that part of my mind is afraid of the end. This morning, it didn’t want to understand the meaning behind these words. It wanted to think that peace is impossible and that even if I understand the concepts, I can’t put them to work. It wants to believe that I am still the separated self, and that isn’t going to change. What is the ego mind working so hard to hide from me? What does it not want me to remember?

Here is what comes into my mind when I ask that question.

The ego doesn’t want me to recover the memory of being God, of choosing to have this experience, of everything I experience being something I want to experience, and something I chose. It cannot stop the flow of memories, but it can slow them down as it gets my attention with some drama or the other and I start to feel afraid or guilty because I believe the ego interpretation of it.

But what if everything that happens to me is perfect because it helps me wake up? What if all these dramas and fearful thoughts and even the things that I feel guilty about are what I am using to wake myself up? Battling my ego self over and over was frustrating, but in the end, I chose God. When I got to the hotel I thought about the day and realized how often Spirit had helped me to see more clearly, how just the right thought entered my mind at just the right moment. At one point, I felt such a strong desire to listen to a particular section of the Course while I was driving, and a little later, when the ego was trying to bring me back into its story again, the words I had listened to helped me to see through the ego.

While very uncomfortable, all of the things I thought and felt yesterday were actually helping me. I was given many opportunities to see what I don’t want to experience anymore, many opportunities to make a different choice, and many opportunities to see that the choice is mine always. How can I call that a failure? I had a necessary and important experience yesterday, and today, I go forward with more certainty than before.

And now…

This paragraph is very clear to me. My mind is split. The split (the ego) is determined not to learn what will wake me up. My right mind, where the Holy Spirit resides, is determined to learn what I need in order to wake up. As long as I keep bouncing from one mind to the other, I am at war with myself and will not awaken. But in spite of my shifting attention, I am waking up. Every day, I get closer to liberation from the ego thought system. Relax if you feel frustrated, uncertain, or fearful of failure. You will awaken and it will be in perfect timing.

A love song from God to us.

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 8

8 You who have tried to learn what you do not want should take heart, for although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous if you look at it. Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not to attain it? Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. But it is not so yet, and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it up is reversed.

Our mind is split between God and ego, and as we use the ego mind, we are unable to learn or teach because the ego mind has an absolute rule, that is, to seek and not find. So, whatever I try to learn through the ego will inevitably fail, as will my efforts to teach. The part of my mind that is God can and will succeed in teaching and learning because it is not conflicted in its goal. All that is needed from me to be a successful learner and teacher is to listen to God only. With practice, I have learned that I can do this, and doing it has taught me that I want to do it.

I have become very good at being vigilant for my thoughts.

This is because of my practice of learning to listen to only the God part of my mind. Yesterday, I was very aware of how the ego attempts to keep my attention and thus perpetuate the separation idea. First, it gives me a problem. It attempts to disrupt the peace of my mind with either a possible future problem or a regretful past.

If I am interested, that is, if this thought triggers a belief in my mind, I think there is really a problem that needs to be solved. Then, the ego attempts to give me a solution to the problem. Of course, the solution will not work because, for the ego, the problem is the goal, not the solution. This plays over and over in the mind. I have no idea if I can stop the ego attempts, but I can stop believing in them. I can stop listening to the ego by listening to the Holy Spirit instead.

Because I didn’t sleep much last night the ego started in with the “problem of not much sleep” before I even got out of bed. Then, it started with solutions for this problem. I asked the Holy Spirit what He would have me do with this, and the answer was to simply experience today without judging it. So, when I felt sleepy or foggy this morning, I just sat back and enjoyed the feeling. It is not a problem unless I listen to the ego make it a problem.

V. The Sane Curriculum, P 9

9 Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. You can teach the way to Him and learn it, if you follow the Teacher Who knows the way to Him and understands His curriculum for learning it. The curriculum is totally unambiguous, because the goal is not divided and the means and the end are in complete accord. You need offer only undivided attention. Everything else will be given you. For you really want to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the decision of God’s Son. His learning is as unlimited as he is.

Jesus tells me that I can do nothing of myself but also assures me I am not of myself. I am of God and have His Voice to lead me out of this interesting and awful story. I can teach as I learn and learn as I teach. As long as I use my Guide and listen to His Voice, I will give Him my thoughts. They will be purified, corrected, or sometimes just removed. My potential is unlimited, as I will follow my Teacher to God.

Certainly, I know this is true.

I know the ego mind is a confused jumble of untrue thoughts, so I am rapidly losing interest in what it thinks it knows. I am very good at being vigilant for my thoughts, and I always ask for healing sooner rather than later. What is left for me to do? I see a couple of ideas that I still need to practice.

I know that it is absolutely necessary that I have only one goal. As long as there are two goals in my mind, I am maintaining the split that is the ego. I know this, but I still need to practice it. Although it is rare now, I can still notice I am interested in another goal. And sometimes believe it is important, maybe even necessary. So, the Holy Spirit is helping me to be vigilant for this. As soon as I saw that I had done this, I changed my mind. This is my practice.

The other idea that needs my practice is that I divide my attention. I still listen to the ego sometimes rather than Spirit. Again, this is something that I am willing to let go of. It seems harder for some reason. The ego mind chatters incessantly, eventually chattering on about something that interests me, but I am learning to disregard it.

What seems to be helping me in this is to relax, allow, and trust.

I relax around my errors, allow them to be healed. And I trust that I am doing this and will succeed despite what are sometimes appearances to the contrary. Sometimes, I want to question the Holy Spirit as to why I am not given more help.

This lack of trust is caused by my getting constricted by my seeming failures and starting to believe in them more than I believe in myself. When this happens, I realize that I am not singular in my teacher or my goal. I relax again, quiet my mind, and wait for the comfort and guidance that always comes.

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