Introduction, P 4
4. This is inevitable. 2 There is no escape from it. 3 How could it be otherwise? 4 Everyone who follows the world’s curriculum, and everyone here does follow it until he changes his mind, teaches solely to convince himself that he is what he is not. 5 Herein is the purpose of the world. 6 What else, then, would its curriculum be? 7Into this hopeless and closed learning situation, which teaches nothing but despair and death, God sends His teachers. 8 And as they teach His lessons of joy and hope, their learning finally becomes complete.
Silliness
The first thing that came to mind as I read this is how silly it is to feel guilty for ego separation thoughts, and for my many errors. I am in this world in order to teach myself that I am what I am not. So of course, I follow the world’s curriculum. At least, I did so until I decided otherwise. Then I spent some years learning something new. I learned that I don’t want to follow the world’s curriculum anymore, and I learned how to turn this around.
Metamorphous of Teaching
As Jesus tells us, I was always a teacher as are we all. We teach in every moment of our lives, and there is no other option. We cannot stop teaching, so we are teachers whether we want that responsibility or not. As I began to follow the Holy Spirit’s curriculum, what I taught changed because I was learning to teach from love rather than fear.
Slowly, I became more and more adept at being a teacher of God rather than a teacher of ego. Those are our only two choices. We will teach, the question is, will we teach for God or for the ego? Now that I know the difference, I am teaching His lessons of joy and hope and I am learning what I teach. And this is inevitable also. We always learn what we teach.
Humility of Teaching
When this new way of teaching became apparent to me, I was reluctant to claim the title teacher of God. But now I see how silly that is. Would I be happier to be titled teacher of ego, because it is definitely going to be one or the other. I felt arrogant saying this about myself and even as I began to accept that role, I hedged by subtly putting myself down at the same time I spoke what I knew was true or truer perception.
Imposter
That was just ego fear. I also would back away because I feared that I was really an imposter and sooner or later I would say something crazy or do something that was clearly ego and then I would be found out. Eventually, I accepted that there were times when the ego mind would try to assert itself as the author of truth. And there were times when I fell right back into ego behavior and that was just the way of things. But that did not in any way change the fact that as often as I could, I was a teacher of God.
Humble
Now I don’t worry about any of that. I am happy to be a teacher of God. When I slip up, I forgive myself and I go back to being a teacher of God. I am talking about this because I think a lot of people are afraid to step up, afraid that it makes them look arrogant, afraid that they won’t measure up, that they will make mistakes. But Jesus needs his teachers. Each of us makes a profound difference to the whole.
Accept Our Part
All that we have to do is say yes, and God will send us into this closed system of despair and death where we can do His work. He is not asking us to be perfect. In fact, Jesus says that it is in doing the work that our lesson finally becomes complete. He asks only that we accept our part. It will look different for each of us.
The Call
For me it was to become a minister, something I did in spite of my fear and doubt, because I felt the Call to do so. It includes writing, something else that I had no idea was possible for me. At first, this too was stressful. In fact, at first I was not comfortable with anything he asked me to do. Sometimes I was so afraid that I cried. But, I kept doing it and I grew through doing it.
For others, the Call will be to something else, each according to our gifts, gifts we may not even know we have. It may be that someone will teach love through relationships. Others may teach there is no loss through overcoming great loss. Someone else becomes an inspiration simply through his consistent kindness and love. Whatever your part, it will be perfect for you. Do you want to learn? Then teach what you want to learn. That’s the way it works.