A
Course in Miracles
Chapter
7 - Consistency of the Kingdom
Unified
Curriculum
To heal is to liberate totally. We
once said there is no order of difficulty in miracles because they
are all maximal expressions of love. This has no range at all. The
non-maximal only appears to have a range. This is because it seems
to be meaningful to measure it from the maximum, and identify its
position by how much it is not there.
Actually,
this does not mean anything. It
is like negative numbers in that the concept can be used theoretically,
but it has no application practically. It
is true that if you put three apples on the table and then take
them away, the three apples are not there, but it is not true that
the table is now minus three apples. If there is nothing on the
table, it does not matter what was there in terms of amount. The
“nothing” is neither greater nor less because of what
is absent.
That is why “all” and “nothing” are dichotomous,
without a range. This
is perfectly clear in considering psychological tests of maximal
performance. You cannot interpret the results at all, unless you
assume either maximal motivation or no motivation at all. Only in
these two conditions can you validly compare responses, and you
must assume the former because, if the latter were true, the subject
would not do anything. Given variable motivation he will do something,
but you cannot understand what it is.
The
results of such tests are evaluated relatively assuming maximal
motivation, but this is because we are dealing with abilities, where
degree of development is meaningful. This does not mean that what
the ability is used for is necessarily either limited or divided.
Yet
one thing is certain; abilities are potentials for learning, and
you will apply them to what you want to learn. Learning
is effort, and effort means will. We
have used the term “abilities” in the plural, because
abilities began with the ego, which perceived them as potentials
for excelling. This is how the ego still perceives them and uses
them.
The
ego does not want to teach everyone all it has learned, because
that would defeat its purpose. Therefore, it does not really learn
at all. The
Holy Spirit teaches you to use what the ego has made to teach the
opposite of what the ego has learned.
The
kind of learning is as irrelevant as is the particular ability which
was applied to the learning.
You
could not have a better example of the Holy Spirit’s unified
purpose than this course. The
Holy Spirit has taken very diversified areas of your learning, and
has applied them to a unified curriculum.
The
fact that this was not the ego’s reason for learning is totally
irrelevant.You made the effort
to learn, and the Holy Spirit has a unified goal for all effort.
He adapts the ego’s potentials for excelling to potentials
for equalizing. This makes them
useless for the ego’s purpose, but very useful for His.
If
different abilities are applied long enough to one goal, the abilities
themselves become unified. This is because they are channelized
in one direction, or in one way. Ultimately, then, they all contribute
to one result, and by so doing, their similarity rather than their
differences is emphasized. You can
excel in many different ways, but you can equalize in one way only.
Equality
is not a variable state, by definition.
That
is why you will be able to perform all aspects of your work with
ease when you have learned this course. To
the ego there appears to be no connection, because the ego is discontinuous.
et the Holy Spirit teaches ONE lesson, and applies it to all individuals
in all situations. Being conflict-free, He maximizes all efforts
and all results. By
teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you
that all power is yours. Its application does not matter. It is
always maximal. Your vigilance does not establish it as yours, but
it does enable you to use it always and in all ways.
When
I said, “I am with you always,” Matthew
28:20 I meant it literally. I am not absent to anyone,
in any situation. Because I am always with you, you are the Way
and the Truth and the Light. You did not make this power any more
than I did. It was created to be shared, and therefore cannot be
meaningfully perceived as belonging to anyone at the expense of
another. Such a perception makes it meaningless by eliminating or
overlooking its real and only meaning.
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