Introduction, P 2
2 You have been asked to take me as your model for learning, since an extreme example is a particularly helpful learning device. Everyone teaches, and teaches all the time. This is a responsibility you inevitably assume the moment you accept any premise at all, and no one can organize his life without some thought system. Once you have developed a thought system of any kind, you live by it and teach it. Your capacity for allegiance to a thought system may be misplaced, but it is still a form of faith and can be redirected.
Journal
This is the sentence that stands out for me: Everyone teaches, and teaches all the time. Understanding that this is true, I want to always teach for God, but since I teach all the time, the only way to always teach for God is to always think only the thoughts that I think with God. If I am thinking about how angry I am with someone, or if I am blaming someone for something, this is what I am teaching. I am teaching anger and blame. If I am worrying about money or running out of time, I am teaching lack and loss.
I stay aware of my emotions and my thoughts and this lets me know what I believe. I can say the words that I am responsible for my world, but if I am angry that my neighbors trash blew into my yard, then I know that I am not taking responsibility for my world no matter what I think I say or what I think I believe. My anger tells me that I am upset and assigning the reason for the upset to my neighbor tells me that I think that neighbor is the cause of my upset.
If I bring the problem with the neighbor to my ego mind, it will prove to me that I am right to be angry. It will offer to protect me by having a discussion with my neighbor. Since I have a spiritual ego, it will think of words to make my neighbor feel guilty that sound “nice.” But the anger and blame are there and that is what I will be teaching.
Even if I chose to pick up the trash and not confront the neighbor in any way, I would still be teaching anger and blame if those beliefs are in my mind. I would be teaching it to myself. I will be reinforcing a wrong-minded thought and making it even more real, and so harder to let go. The only way not to teach anger and blame is to accept the Atonement for the belief that someone is guilty. From a healed mind I will hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance about what to say, if anything. And with my mind healed of the belief that I am victim to my neighbor, I will be at peace.