Back to the Lessons

The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.
Brian Herbert (I think :))


Ego Learning

I have what is equivalent to seven years of university and two years of college and I am realizing that it means absolutely nothing when it comes to "true learning."

The motivation  behind my learning before was ego.  I wanted degrees and diplomas to make me look and feel better. I wanted careers I could create an image with; occupational, professional, societal roles ego could wrap around me, to use as a dressing to hide what lay beneath. Ego convinced  me that what lay beneath the dressing was broken and ugly and  best hid by socially approved images and roles.  So I went after the credits I needed and got lost in the idea of learning as ego wrapped and wrapped and wrapped one identity around me after the other. Even if the career image didn't fit I could identify with being a "life-long learner." As long as I had layers of identity covering who I really was, ego was happy.

If these images were as visible as gauze over a wound, I would probably look like one of those characters in the paper towel commercial ready to soak up the messes left by a messy life.

 As the "images" and "identities' were removed or lost I began to see that was never who I truly was. As I began to lose the things this learning seemed to offer me, I began to realize just how little I actually know about what is truly important.Whatever ego certification I have received for learning means nothing in the big scheme of things...true learning is not measured by credits,  degrees or diplomas. It is not measured by occupational and professional  role qualifications. It is measured by something I cannot even explain in words.

True Learning

Yet here I am...removing  what's left of the layers of identity I created around myself so I can truly learn. What life didn't pull off...I am gritting my teeth , clenching up and pulling the remaining layers off. Ouch!  I am red, raw and know so very little.

True learning, after all, involves dismantling this illusion of ego and all the crazy things it teaches. Learning is ultimately perceived as frightening because it leads to the relinquishment, not the destruction, of ego to the light of spirit. (ACIM 4:I.3:2 )

I am now a frightened little freshman in the university that doesn't offer degrees. Just salvation, peace and awareness of who we really are. All I have left is the capacity, the ability and the willingness to learn what I am here to learn. I hope it is enough.

Learning through Teaching

One thing I did learn to do to help with my own learning over the years is to teach.  I learn through teaching and I teach through learning. As a result I am in the middle of offering lessons so I learn, and teaching what I do learn.

A good teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them by teaching them. ACIM 4: I: 1:1

Clarify them then!

I know , I know...I am all over the  place with these most recent lessons lol.  But we actually just covered Lesson Four: Understanding what the ego is...more importantly what it is not. 

• March 23, we covered how ego makes us suffer;
• How it hides our true Self away and convinces us we are broken at the core was covered in a poem on March 25;
• It's addictive quality was covered on March 26,and  in the videos on March 31;
• And its "nothingness' was covered on March 29th, March 30th and April 2

We also covered a lot on removing attachment Lesson Five;

• through all the above because you really cannot talk about the ego without talking about attachment;
• throughout all the entries on problems;
• and on March 30th and again yesterday on April 2

Lesson 6th, which we will get to soon, is all about understanding fear so we can get beyond it.

All good.