More Basics from the Manual For Teachers
by Tom Baker
Lesson: 1. WHO ARE GOD'S TEAHERS?, 2. WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS?, 3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? Pages 3-8 in the Teachers Manual. Plus the levels of the ego as discovered by Mary Roach.
Date: February 15, 2009
In spiritual study we are always, in some sense, beginning again. In Buddhism the monk, the student, the seeker is always encouraged to have a beginner's mind, even after years of deep meditation and study. Always know you do not know, or rather you know in part with the mental image of yourself and its attendant problems, issues, and obsessions at the center of your perception of reality. We are all like a worried child looking out the same dirty window into the same narrow street everyday, looking for the answer to her or his worries and thinking that the window and the street and yesterday and tomorrow are all there is. A stale and sad state. In the interest of freshness I return to basics. I pry the window open, ask those passing by if there are other streets and brighter worlds, and sniff the air for the aromas of spring and sanctity. For awhile I will concentrate on the Manual for Teachers, which appears after the workbook and seems to be at the end of the Course. Yet it often goes into basic questions, so it is also a new beginning. All deep spirituality returns us to our origins, so let us go there in terms of our study.
Basic question: What is A Course In Miracles preparing us for? Certainly not to be teachers of the Course. That would be a wearisome academic pursuit and turn the pursuit of vision into dogmatic prescriptions. The Course is preparing us to be Teachers of God. One becomes a teacher of God by choosing to be one. Like Mary at the Annunciation the Teacher of God's credential consists simply in a soulful "yes." The basis of this yes is that the Teacher of God, at least for a moment, "did not see his [her] interests as apart from someone else's." (M. p. 3). The child at the window has connected with someone in the street and in place of her worries has affirmed that each seeks the peace of God in a form that the Holy Spirit will supply. Another basic question: How does the Teacher of God function in the scheme of salvation. How does he or she help? The answer is surprising. "Their function is to save time.......each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it." That was the revolutionary claim of the Buddha: instead of millions of years treading the painful turnstile of karma enlightenment could be had in one lifetime. Jesus said the same thing when he taught that a moment's grace transcended centuries of tedious interpretation of the Law. With the Buddha the practice was meditation and the middle way. With the Course it is contemplative study of the workbook and forgiveness. Another basic question: What is the Teacher of God teaching? What's the content? The answer is disarmingly simple: "God's Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation." (M. p. 3). In Chapter 6 of the Text Jesus says it more poetically when he says to the Teacher of God, "Teach only love for that is what you are." We are always teaching. We are always teaching others and ourselves that we are either innocent or guilty, priceless or a commodity, a wonder of creation or an accident of nature. At the conclusion of this first section Jesus adds that the Teacher of God is bringing time to an end. But time does not end in Armageddon or a final firey judgment. It ends when we are brought into the present, also called the Holy Instant. That is why forgiveness stands at the vital center of the Course. Forgiveness cuts the manacles to the past and sees the other and yourself with the face of innocence, so there is no future necessary to make up for or atone for past transgressions. Another basic question: Who is the Teacher of God supposed to be teaching? This section stresses that almost everything is done for you: "Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God's teachers, and they will begin to look for him [her] as soon as he [her] has answered the Call." (M. p. 5). Also, the student already knows God's answer to the separation so the teacher needs only remind the student and herself what she [he] has forgotten and the curriculum and the forms of learning are supplied by the Holy Spirit, so all that is required from the teacher of God is willingness to teach, share, and demonstrate what is given by the Spirit. This means a fair amount of humility on the part of the teacher of God. The third section concerns the levels of teaching which are generally divided into three categories: (1) the casual encounter of a very brief duration, (2) "a more sustained relationship, in which, for a time, two people enter into a fairly intense teaching-learning situation and then appear to separate," as in counseling or in the group setting at the ARE (M. p. 8), or (3) a life long "chosen learning partner who presents him [her] with unlimited opportunities for learning" (M. p. 8). I think here of children, spouses and ex-spouses, and life long friends and enemies. There is the sense here that the Holy Spirit is a kind of divine match maker with our part consisting of being open to who is presented.
While the Course talks a lot about the ego, it seldom is specific about how it
actually works in everyday life. About ten years ago Mary Roach and I came
together for a nine month project in which I hypnotized her and asked her
questions about the various states of consciousness. When we came to the
negative states she was very specific about what they were. I call them the
ego levels of consciousness and have found them quite useful in thinking
about how the ego works concretely in daily life. The levels are as follows: © Copyright Tom Baker 2009
The Levels of the Ego Explored:
