"Nothing more than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think he has lost his innocence, denied his Father and made war upon himself." -A Course in Miracles

A Course in Miracles

Manual For Teachers

WHO ARE THEIR PUPILS?

Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God's teachers, and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call.

They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding.

His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain.

Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice but not whom he will serve.

When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.

In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time which the course sets forth.

Atonement corrects illusions, not the truth. Therefore it corrects what never was.

Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him.

The instant the idea of separation (from God) entered the mind of God's Son, in that same instant was God's Answer given.

In time this happened very long ago.

In reality it never happened at all.

 

The world of time is the world of illlusion.

What happened long ago seems to be happening now.

Choices made long since appear to be open, yet to be made.

What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach.

Because your will is free, you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there.

As the course emphasizes...

you are not free to choose the curriculum, or even the form in which you will learn it.

You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept it, it is already learned.

Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is beyond all memory and past even the possibility of remembering.

Yet because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still again, it seems to be now.

And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met before.

The pupil comes at the right time to the right place.

This is inevitable because he made the right choice in that ancient instant which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice out of an ancient past.

God's Will in everything but seems to take time in the working-out.

What could delay the Power of eternity?