Corresponding Manual for Teachers Section

Chapter 4: Teacher / Individual Questions

1. Are Changes Required in the Life Situations of the Divine’s Teachers?

Changes are required in the minds and hearts of the Divine’s Teachers. This may or may not involve changes in their external life situations. Remember that everyone is where they are according to the Divine’s Plan of Atonement, and that neither chance nor accident plays any part in this Plan. It is highly likely that changes in attitude, values, and perspective would be the first steps of the training of any new Teacher of the Divine. There is, however, no set pattern, since training is always highly individualized.

There are those Teachers of the Divine who are called upon to change their life situation almost immediately upon the shift in their life’s purpose, but these are generally unique cases. By far the majority are given a slowly-evolving training program by the Holy Spirit, in which attitude, values, and perspective are set on a stable Foundation of Truth, and from this Foundation as many previous mistakes, wrongs, and hurts as possible are forgiven and given to the Atonement for Correction. In this way the frame of mind that caused the ongoing experience of mistakes, wrongs, and hurts can be released. Relationships in particular must be forgiven so that they can be properly perceived, and all dark cornerstones of unforgiveness removed. Otherwise the ego’s thought system still has a basis for return through the old habit of assigning roles to everyone and then taking offense and holding resentment, grievances and grudges when these roles are not fulfilled by those assigned them by the ego.

As the Teacher of the Divine advances in their learning, they comprehend one lesson with increasing thoroughness: they don’t make decisions alone. They come to naturally ask their Teacher for Its Guidance in each situation, and it is This they follow as their inspiration for action. This becomes increasingly easier as the Teacher of the Divine learns to give up their own judgment about all things, which must always be faulty because it is their own, apart from Spirit. They increasingly remember not to assume Spirit’s Function of assigning what roles are best for everyone and everything involved in each situation, and thereby free themselves of the resentment, grievances, grudges and taking of offense that once was a central focus of attention.

The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing the Divine’s Voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting. The world’s training in this regard is directed toward achieving a goal in direct opposition to that of our curriculum. The world trains for reliance on one’s judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of all judgment as a necessary condition of awakening.