The Sane Curriculum

Chapter 12 – 5 – The Sane Curriculum

Only love is strong because it is undivided. The strong do not attack
because they see no need to do so. Before the idea of attack can enter your
mind, you must have perceived yourself as weak. Because you attacked
yourself and believed that the attack was effective, you behold yourself as
weakened. No longer perceiving yourself and your brothers as equal, and
regarding yourself as weaker, you attempt to “equalize” the situation you
made. You use attack to do so because you believe that attack was
successful in weakening you.
 
That is why the recognition of your own invulnerability is so important to
the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are
recognizing that attack has no effect. Although you have attacked yourself,
you will be demonstrating that nothing really happened. Therefore, by
attacking you have not done anything. Once you realize this you will no
longer see any sense in attack, for it manifestly does not work and cannot
protect you. Yet the recognition of your invulnerability has more than
negative value. If your attacks on yourself have failed to weaken you, you
are still strong. You therefore have no need to “equalize” the situation to
establish your strength.
 
You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack except by recognizing
that your attack on yourself has no effects. For others do react to attack if
they perceive it, and if you are trying to attack them you will be unable to
avoid interpreting this as reinforcement. The only place you can cancel out
all reinforcement is in yourself. For you are always the first point of your
attack, and if this has never been, it has no consequences.
 
The Holy Spirit’s Love is your strength, for yours is divided and therefore
not real. You cannot trust your own love when you attack it. You cannot
learn of perfect love with a split mind, because a split mind has made itself
a poor learner. You tried to make the separation eternal, because you
wanted to retain the characteristics of creation, but with your own content.
 
Yet creation is not of you, and poor learners do need special teaching.
 
You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your
learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under
constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your
limited resources. He becomes your Resource because of yourself you
cannot learn. The learning situation in which you placed yourself is
impossible, and in this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a
special curriculum. Poor learners are not good choices as teachers, either for
themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to them to establish
the curriculum by which they can escape from their limitations. If they
understood what is beyond them, they would not be handicapped.
 
You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. Do not
attempt to teach yourself what you do not understand, and do not try to set
up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. Your learning goal has
been not to learn, and this cannot lead to successful learning. You cannot
transfer what you have not learned, and the impairment of the ability to
generalize is a crucial learning failure. Would you ask those who have
failed to learn what learning aids are for? They do not know. If they could
interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them.
 
I have said that the ego’s rule is, “Seek and do not find. “Translated into
curricular terms this means, “Try to learn but do not succeed. “The result of
this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real
instruction, and every sensible guide to learning will be misinterpreted,
since they are all for facilitating the learning this strange curriculum is
against. If you are trying to learn how not to learn, and the aim of your
teaching is to defeat itself, what can you expect but confusion? Such a
curriculum does not make sense. This attempt at “learning” has so
weakened your mind that you cannot love, for the curriculum you have
chosen is against love, and amounts to a course in how to attack yourself. A
supplementary goal in this curriculum is learning how not to overcome the
split that makes its primary aim believable. And you will not overcome the
split in this curriculum, for all your learning will be on its behalf. Yet your
mind speaks against your learning as your learning speaks against your
mind, and so you fight against all learning and succeed, for that is what you
want. But perhaps you do not realize, even yet, that there is something you
want to learn, and that you can learn it because it is your choice to do so.
 
You who have tried to learn what you do not want should take heart, for
although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely
ridiculous if you look at it. Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not
to attain it? Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead
to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have
taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the
proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand,
you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. But it is not
so yet, and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it
up is reversed.
 
Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will
lead you to God. You can teach the way to him and learn it, if you follow
the Teacher Who knows the way to him and understands his curriculum for
learning it. The curriculum is totally unambiguous, because the goal is not
divided and the means and the end are in complete accord. You need offer
only undivided attention. Everything else will be given you. For you really
want to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the decision of God’s Son. His
learning is as unlimited as he is.