 We continue today with the manual for teachers. Question number eight. How can perception of order of difficulties be avoided? The belief in order of difficulties is the basis for the world's perception. It rests on differences, on uneven background and shifting foreground, on unequal heights and diverse sizes, on varying degrees of darkness and light and thousands of contrast in which each thing seen competes with every other in order to be recognized. A larger object overshadows a smaller one. A brighter thing draws the attention from another with less intensity of appeal. And a more threatening idea, or one conceived of as more desirable by the world's standards, completely upsets the mental balance. What the body's eyes behold is only conflict. Look not to them for peace and understanding. Illusions are always illusions of differences. How could it be otherwise? By definition an illusion is an attempt to make something real that is regarded as of major importance, but is recognized as being untrue. The mind therefore seeks to make it true out of its intensity of desire to have it for itself. Illusions are travesty of creation, attempts to bring truth to lies. Finding truth unacceptable, the mind revolts against the truth and gives itself an illusion of victory. Finding health, a burden, it retreats into feverish dreams. And in these dreams the mind is separate, different from other minds with different interests of its own and able to gratify its needs at the expense of others. Where do all these differences come from? Certainly they seem to be in the world outside. Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold. It is the mind that interprets the eyes' messages and gives them quote meaning. And this meaning does not exist in the world outside at all. What is seen as quote reality is simply what the mind prefers. Its hierarchy of values is projected outward and it sends the body's eyes to find it. The body's eyes will never see except through differences. Yet it is not the messages they bring on which perception rests. Only the mind evaluates their messages and so only the mind is responsible for seeing. It alone decides whether what is seen is real or illusory, desirable or undesirable, pleasurable or painful. It is in the sorting out and categorizing activities of the mind that errors and perception enter. And it is here correction must be made. The mind classifies what the body's eyes bring to it according to its preconceived values, judging where each sense datum fits best. What basis could be faultier than this? Unrecognized by itself, it has itself asked to be given what will fit into these categories. And having done so, it concludes that the categories must be true. On this the judgment of all differences rests because it is on this that judgments of the world depend. Can this confused and senseless quote reasoning be depended on for anything? There can be no order of difficulty in healing merely because all sickness is illusion. Is it harder to dispel the belief of the insane in a larger hallucination as opposed to a smaller one? Will he agree more quickly to the unreality of a louder voice he hears than to that of a softer one? Will he dismiss more easily a whispered demand to kill than a shout? And do the number of pitchforks the devils he sees carrying affect their credibility in his perception? His mind has categorized them all as real, and so they are all real to him. When he realizes they are all illusions, they will disappear. And so it is with healing. The properties of illusions which seem to make them different are really irrelevant, for their properties are as illusory as they are. The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be quote sicker than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category, they are unreal. This is the gift of its teacher, the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two, but one is real. Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place, for differences cannot exist within it. So too are illusions without distinctions. The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth. Number nine are changes required in the life situation of God's teachers. Changes are required in the minds of God's teachers. This may or may not involve changes in the external situation. Remember that no one is where he is by accident, and chance plays no part in God's plan. It is most unlikely that changes in attitudes would not be the first step in the newly made teacher of God's trainings. There is, however, no set pattern, since training is always highly individualized. There are those who are called upon to change their life situation almost immediately, but these are generally special cases. By far the majority are given a slowly evolving training program, in which as many previous mistakes as possible are corrected. Relationships in particular must be properly perceived, and all dark cornerstones of unforgiveness removed. Otherwise, the old thought system still has a basis for return. As a teacher of God advances in his training, he learns one lesson with increasing thoroughness. He does not make his own decisions. He asks his teacher for his answer, and it is this he follows as his guide for action. This becomes easier and easier as the teacher of God learns to give up his own judgment. The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing God's voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting. The world's training is directed towards achieving a goal in direct opposition to that of our curriculum. The world trains for reliance on one's judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation. How is judgment relinquished? Judgment, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained, is totally misunderstood by the world. It is actually confused with wisdom and substitutes for truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is capable of quote good and quote bad judgment, and his education aims at strengthening the former and minimizing the latter. There is, however, considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is quote good judgment to one is quote bad judgment to another. Further, even the same person classifies the same action as showing quote good judgment at one time and quote bad judgment at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for determining what these categories are be really taught. At any time, the student may disagree with what his would-be teacher says about them, and the teacher himself may well be inconsistent in what he believes. Quote good judgment in these terms does not mean anything. No more does quote bad. It is necessary for the teacher of God to realize not that he should not judge, but that he cannot. In giving up judgment, he is merely giving up what he did not have. He gives up an illusion, or better, he has an illusion of giving up. He has actually merely become more honest. Recognizing that judgment was always impossible for him, he no longer attempts it. This is no sacrifice. On the contrary, he puts himself in a position where judgment through him rather than by him can occur. And this judgment is neither quote good nor quote bad. It is the only judgment there is, and it is only one. God's Son is guiltless and sin does not exist. The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world's learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion, but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things past, present, and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who, except in grandiose fantasies, would claim this for himself? Remember how many times you thought you knew all the facts you needed for judgment, and how wrong you were? Is there anyone who has not had this experience? Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right without ever realizing you were wrong? Why would you choose such an arbitrary basis for decision-making? Wisdom is not judgment, it is the relinquishment of judgment. Great then, but one more judgment. It is this. There is someone with you whose judgment is perfect. He does know all the facts past, present, and to come. He does know all the effects of his judgment on everyone and everything involved in any way. And he is wholly fair to everyone for there is no distortion in his perception. Therefore lay judgment down, not with regret, but with a sigh of gratitude. Now are you free of a burden so great that you could merely stagger and fall down beneath it. And it was all illusion, nothing more. Now can the teacher of God rise up unburdened and walk lately on. Yet it is not only this that is his benefit. His sense of care is gone, for he has none. He has given it away along with judgment. He gave himself to him whose judgment he has now to trust instead of his own. Now he makes no mistakes. His guide is sure. And where he came to judge, he comes to bless. Where now he laughs, he used to come to weep. It is not difficult to relinquish judgment, but it is difficult indeed to try to keep it. The teacher of God lays it down happily the instant he recognizes its cost. All of the ugliness he sees about him is its outcome. All of the pain he looks upon is its result. All of the loneliness and sense of loss, of passing time and growing hopelessness, of sickening despair and fear of death, all these have come of it. And now he knows that these things need not be. Not one is true, for he has given up their cause, and they, which never were but the effects of his mistaken choice, have fallen from him. Teacher of God, this step will bring you peace. Can it be difficult to want but this?