 to a spontaneous edition of A Course in Miracles Live. And today I thought I would talk about peaceful, content, and happy. That's the core. That's the basics. And also welcome some of you every other week. I show a global movie with everyone, all my friends around the world. And so we will be showing one tomorrow at Saturday, 10 a.m., central standard time. And you're welcome to join us. Just go to the Mystical Christ and register up on the tribe of Christ and pop in and join us for that. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Sometimes these movie gatherings, it starts off with a setup and then we have the movie. I come in and do some commentary during the movie and we just have a great time. We just experienced the peace and the joy and the love and the contentment and happiness. So today I thought I would talk about that. And I prayed on what to reference here and A Course in Miracles could help us along those lines because that's what we want in our heart. That's what we want is to stay consistently in this peace and love, joy, happiness, contentment. And so I turned to the section in the manual for teachers of A Course in Miracles and this is the section four or what are the characteristics of God's teachers? So 10 ideas to take you there. To bring you into a state of mind and they actually are more reflections of your heart when your heart is really beating with the pulse of God and you're lined and connected with God then this is like a little seminar on what is natural. So here's 10 ideas that are called the 10 characteristics of God's teachers. And I think that'll be a great insight for us. Number one, trust. This is the foundation on which their ability to fulfill their function rest. Perception is the result of learning. In fact, perception is learning because cause and effect are never separated. The teachers of God have trust in the world because they have learned. It is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a power that is in them but not of them. It is this power that keeps all things safe. It is through this power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world. When this power has once been experienced it is impossible to trust one's own petty strength again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given him? And who would place his faith in the shabby offerings of the ego when the gifts of God are laid for him? What is it that induces them to make the shift? So they will go through a development of trust and that will deepen because trust is our first idea. And then comes honesty. All other traits of God's teachers rest on trust. Once that has been achieved the others cannot fail to follow. Only the trusting can afford honesty for only they can see its value. Honesty does not apply only to what you say. The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do. No thought opposes any other thought. No act belies your word and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything. The peace of mind which the advanced teachers of God experience is largely due to their perfect honesty. It is only the wish to deceive that makes for war. No one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict. Conflict is the inevitable result of self-deception and self-deception is dishonesty. There is no challenge to a teacher of God. Challenge implies doubt and the trust on which God's teachers rest secure makes doubt impossible. Therefore they can only succeed. And this is in all things they are honest. They can only succeed because they never do their will alone. They choose for all mankind, for all the world and all things in it. For the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances and for the son of God and his creator. How could they not succeed? They choose in perfect honesty sure of their choice as of themselves. Tolerance. God's teachers do not judge. To judge is to be dishonest for to judge is to assume a position you do not have. Judgment without self-deception is impossible. Judgment implies that you have been deceived in your brothers. How then could you not have been deceived in yourself? Judgment implies a lack of trust and trust remains the bedrock of the teacher of God's whole thought system. Let this be lost and all his learning goes. Without judgment are all things equally acceptable. For who could judge otherwise? Without judgment are all men brothers. For who is there who stands apart? Judgment destroys honesty and shatters trust. No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn. Beautiful. I love, always love that line. Without judgment are all things equally acceptable. Okay, gentleness. Harm is impossible for God's teachers. They can neither harm nor be harmed. Harm is the outcome of judgment. It is the dishonest act that follows a dishonest thought. It is a verdict of guilt upon a brother and therefore on oneself. It is the end of peace and the denial of learning. It demonstrates the absence of God's curriculum and its replacement by insanity. No teacher of God but must learn and fairly early in his training that harmfulness completely obliterates his function from his awareness. It will make him confused, fearful, angry and suspicious. It will make the Holy Spirit lessons impossible to learn. Nor can God's teacher be heard at all except by those who realize that harm can actually achieve nothing. No gain can come of it. Therefore God's teachers are wholly gentle. They need the strength of gentleness for it is in this that the function of salvation becomes easy. To those who would do harm, it is impossible. To those whom harm has no meaning, it is merely natural. What choice but this has meaning to the same? Who chooses hell when he perceives a way to heaven? And who would choose weakness that must come from harm in place of the unfailing, all-encompassing and limitless strength of gentleness? The might of God's teachers lies in their gentleness for they have understood their evil thoughts came neither from God's son nor his creator. Thus did they join their thoughts with him who is their source. And so their will which always was his own is free to be itself. Joy. Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible and what could come to interfere with joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe. Joy goes with gentleness as surely as grief attends attack. God's teachers trust in him and they are sure his teacher goes before them making sure no harm can come to them. They hold his gifts and follow in his way because God's voice directs them in all things. Joy is their song of thanks and Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of him. How joyous it is to share the purpose of salvation. Defenselessness. God's teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth. They do not try to make themselves. Their joy comes from their understanding who created them and does what God created need defense. No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions. The more grotesque the dream, the fiercer and more powerful its defenses seem to be. Yet when the teacher of God finally agrees to look past them, he finds that nothing was there. Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived but he learns faster as his trust increases. It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy and it is God. Generosity. The term generosity has special meaning to the teacher of God. It is not the usual meaning of the word. In fact, it is a meaning that must be learned and learned very carefully. Like all other attributes of God's teachers, this one rests ultimately on trust. For without trust, no one can be generous in the true sense. To the world, generosity means giving away in the sense of giving up. To the teachers of God, it means giving away in order to keep. This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many other ideas in our curriculum. Its greater strangeness lies merely in the obviousness of its reversal of the world's thinking in the clearest possible way. And at the simplest of levels, the word means the exact opposite to the teachers of God and to the world. The teacher of God is generous out of Christ self-interest. This does not refer, however, to the ego self, which the world speaks. The teacher of God does not want anything he cannot give away because he realizes it would be valueless to him by definition. What would he want it for? He could only lose because of it. He could not gain. Therefore, he does not seek what only he could keep because that is a guarantee of loss. He does not want to suffer. Why should he ensure himself pain? But he does want to keep for himself all things that are of God and therefore for his son. These are the things that belong to him. These he can give away in true generosity protecting them forever for himself. There it is. But he does want to keep for himself all things that are of God and therefore of his son. These he can give away in true generosity protecting them forever for himself. It's the beatitudes all over. Patience. Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety. Patience is natural to the teacher of God. All he sees is certain outcome at a time perhaps unknown to him as yet, but not in doubt. The time will be as right as is the answer. And this is true for everything that happens now or in the future. The past as well held no mistakes. Nothing that did not serve to benefit the world as well as him to whom it seemed to happen. Well, we've got to say that one again. Here it is. The past as well held no mistakes. Nothing that did not serve to benefit the world as well as him to whom it seemed to happen. Perhaps it was not understood at the time. Even so, the teacher of God is willing to reconsider all his past decisions if they are causing pain to anyone. Patience is natural to those who trust. Sure of the ultimate interpretation of all things in time, no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear. Faithfulness, the extent of the teacher of God's faithfulness is the measure of his advancement in the curriculum. Does he still select some aspects of his life to bring to his learning while keeping others apart? If so, his advancement is limited and his trust not yet firmly established. Faithfulness is the teacher of God's trust in the word of God to set all things right, not some, but all. Generally, his faithfulness begins by resting on just some problems remaining carefully limited for a time. To give up all problems to one answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely. And that alone is faithfulness. Nothing but that really deserves the name. Yet each degree, however small, is worth achieving. Readiness, as the text notes, is not mastery. True faithfulness, however, does not deviate. Being consistent, it is wholly honest. Being unswerving, it is full of trust. Being based on fearlessness, it is gentle. Being certain, it is joyous. And being confident, it is tolerant. Faithfulness then combines in itself the other attributes of God's teachers. It implies acceptance of the word of God and his definition of his son. It is to them that faithfulness in the true sense is always directed. Toward them it looks, seeking until it finds. Defenselessness attends it naturally and joy is its condition. In having found, it rests in quiet certainty on that alone to which all faithfulness is due. And finally, our 10th idea, open-mindedness. The centrality of open-mindedness, perhaps the last of the attributes the teacher of God acquires, is easily understood when its relationship to forgiveness is recognized. Open-mindedness comes with lack of judgment. As judgment shuts the mind against God's teachers, so open-mindedness invites him to come in. As condemnation judges the son of God as evil. So open-mindedness permits him to be judged by the voice for God on his behalf. As the projection of guilt upon him would send him to hell, so open-mindedness lets Christ's image be extended to him. Only the open-minded can be at peace for they alone see reason for it. How do the open-minded forgive? They have let go all things that would prevent forgiveness. They have in truth abandoned the world and let it be restored to them in newness and in joy so glorious they could never have conceived of such a change. Nothing is now as it was formerly. Nothing but sparkles now, which seemed so dull and lifeless before. And above all are all things welcoming for threat is gone. No clouds remain to hide the face of Christ. Now is the goal achieved. Forgiveness is the final goal of the curriculum. It paves the way for what goes far beyond all learning. The curriculum makes no effort to exceed its legitimate goal. Forgiveness is its single aim at which all learning ultimately converges. It is indeed enough. You may have noticed that the list of attributes of God's teachers does not include things that are the son of God's inheritance. Terms like love, sinlessness, perfection, knowledge, and eternal truth do not appear in this context. They would be most inappropriate here. What God has given is so far beyond our curriculum that learning but disappears in its presence. Yet while its presence is obscured, the focus properly belongs on the curriculum. It is the function of God's teachers to bring true learning to the world. Properly speaking, it is unlearning that they bring, for that is true learning in the world, unlearning. It is given to the teachers of God to bring the glad tidings of complete forgiveness to the world. Blessed indeed are they, for they are the bringers of salvation. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And I thought I would close today with a song from my friend, Helena Hoonison. And this is a very deep, penetratingly deep meditation. It's a prayer, it's called in the center. So let's just all really, really relax and close your eyes and open your heart. Feel the sincere prayer of your heart for peace. Feel your willingness to go in the center of your being. It's a matter of speed, it's wisdom to say. It's some strong speed, it's wisdom to say. It just stops. Beautiful, very still, very still. I wish you a quiet day in the center, staying your heart of you.