T-4.I Right Teaching and Right Learning
1. A good teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them by teaching them. ²Teacher and pupil are alike in the learning process. ³They are in the same order of learning, and unless they share their lessons conviction will be lacking. ⁴A good teacher must believe in the ideas he teaches, but he must meet another condition: he must believe in the students to whom he offers the ideas.
2. Many stand guard over their ideas because they want to protect their thought systems as they are, and learning means change. ²Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a move towards healing the separation. ³They always perceive it as a move toward further separation, because the separation was their first experience of change. ⁴You believe that if you allow no change to enter into your ego you will find peace. ⁵This profound confusion is possible only if you maintain that the same thought system can stand on two foundations. ⁶Nothing can reach spirit from the ego, and nothing can reach the ego from spirit. ⁷Spirit can neither strengthen the ego nor reduce the conflict within it. ⁸The ego is a contradiction. ⁹Your self and God’s Self are in opposition. ¹⁰They are opposed in source, in direction and in outcome. ¹¹They are fundamentally irreconcilable, because spirit cannot perceive and the ego cannot know. ¹²They are therefore not in communication and can never be in communication. ¹³Nevertheless, the ego can learn, even though its maker can be misguided. ¹⁴He cannot, however, make the totally lifeless out of the life-given.
3. Spirit need not be taught, but the ego must be. ²Learning is ultimately perceived as frightening because it leads to the relinquishment, not the destruction, of the ego to the light of spirit. ³This is the change the ego must fear, because it does not share my charity. ⁴My lesson was like yours, and because I learned it I can teach it. ⁵I will never attack your ego, but I am trying to teach you how its thought system arose. ⁶When I remind you of your true creation, your ego cannot but respond with fear.
4. Teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now, because they enable you to change your mind and help others to change theirs. ²Refusing to change your mind will not prove that the separation has not occurred. ³The dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming is not really healing his split mind. ⁴You dream of a separated ego and believe in a world that rests upon it. ⁵This is very real to you. ⁶You cannot undo it by not changing your mind about it. ⁷If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me, I will correct it very gently and lead you back to God.
5. Every good teacher hopes to give his students so much of his own learning that they will one day no longer need him. ²This is the one true goal of the teacher. ³It is impossible to convince the ego of this, because it goes against all of its own laws. ⁴But remember that laws are set up to protect the continuity of the system in which the lawmaker believes. ⁵It is natural for the ego to try to protect itself once you have made it, but it is not natural for you to want to obey its laws unless you believe them. ⁶The ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin. ⁷You can, because of the nature of yours.
6. Egos can clash in any situation, but spirit cannot clash at all. ²If you perceive a teacher as merely “a larger ego” you will be afraid, because to enlarge an ego would be to increase anxiety about separation. ³I will teach with you and live with you if you will think with me, but my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for a teacher. ⁴This is the opposite of the ego-oriented teacher’s goal. ⁵He is concerned with the effect of his ego on other egos, and therefore interprets their interaction as a means of ego preservation. ⁶I would not be able to devote myself to teaching if I believed this, and you will not be a devoted teacher as long as you believe it. ⁷I am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected, but I do not accept either perception for myself.
7. Your worth is not established by teaching or learning. ²Your worth is established by God. ³As long as you dispute this everything you do will be fearful, particularly any situation that lends itself to the belief in superiority and inferiority. ⁴Teachers must be patient and repeat their lessons until they are learned. ⁵I am willing to do this, because I have no right to set your learning limits for you. ⁶Again — nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth. ⁷This point is not debatable except in delusions. ⁸Your ego is never at stake because God did not create it. ⁹Your spirit is never at stake because He did. ¹⁰Any confusion on this point is delusional, and no form of devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.
8. The ego tries to exploit all situations into forms of praise for itself in order to overcome its doubts. ²It will remain doubtful as long as you believe in its existence. ³You who made it cannot trust it, because in your right mind you realize it is not real. ⁴The only sane solution is not to try to change reality, which is indeed a fearful attempt, but to accept it as it is. ⁵You are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego but within easy reach of spirit. ⁶When you are afraid, be still and know that God is real, and you are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. ⁷Do not let your ego dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as you are.
9. God is not the author of fear. ²You are. ³You have chosen to create unlike Him, and have therefore made fear for yourself. ⁴You are not at peace because you are not fulfilling your function. ⁵God gave you a very lofty function that you are not meeting. ⁶Your ego has chosen to be afraid instead of meeting it. ⁷When you awaken you will not be able to understand this, because it is literally incredible. ⁸Do not believe the incredible now. ⁹Any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable. ¹⁰The word “inevitable” is fearful to the ego, but joyous to the spirit. ¹¹God is inevitable, and you cannot avoid Him any more than He can avoid you.
10. The ego is afraid of the spirit’s joy, because once you have experienced it you will withdraw all protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in fear. ²Your investment is great now because fear is a witness to the separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it. ³Leave it behind! ⁴Do not listen to it and do not preserve it. ⁵Listen only to God, Who is as incapable of deception as is the spirit He created. ⁶Release yourself and release others. ⁷Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourself to others, and do not accept such a picture of them yourself.
11. The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise. ²Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. ³Its weakness is your strength. ⁴Only God could make a home that is worthy of His creations, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession. ⁵Yet His home will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to enter it. ⁶Of this you can be wholly certain. ⁷God is as incapable of creating the perishable as the ego is of making the eternal.
12. Of your ego you can do nothing to save yourself or others, but of your spirit you can do everything for the salvation of both. ²Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the spirit. ³Spirit is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere. ⁴The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and this gives them truer perception. ⁵The Kingdom of Heaven is the spirit’s right, whose beauty and dignity are far beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the Love of God for His creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and only of Him. ⁶Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself.
13. I will substitute for your ego if you wish, but never for your spirit. ²A father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child’s origin. ³The brother can protect the child’s body and his ego, but he does not confuse himself with the father because he does this. ⁴I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them, and lets me teach you their unimportance. ⁵I could not understand their importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself. ⁶Let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them together. ⁷I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind. ⁸Spirit is far beyond the need of your protection or mine. ⁹Remember this:
¹⁰In this world you need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world. ¹¹That is why you should be of good cheer.