Attention! World Looking for Teachers: No Knowledge Required

A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one.  His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's.
-ACIM:TM:1:1-2


I don't want you to get hung up on that word teacher.  I  especially do not want you to get blocked by the  Course's use of A Teacher of God and on its masculine terminology. These are just words and concepts used to express a message ...nothing more. The message behind them is crucial to our understanding. The teacher role is not selective based on gender, special status or degree of knowledge.  We are all automatically teachers in one way or another when we choose to be. According to Eckhart Tolle in The Deepest Truth of Human existence once the "shift" happens in us we simply teach by demonstrating a different way of living than the way most of us live now.

No knowledge is required.

Choice?

The choice we make is not so much in the choice to become a teacher, but in the choice to be present and aware instead of being stuck in the madness of our minds. We unknowingly make a choice to teach, when we make a choice to wake up from the illusion of what we had falsely believed was real and important . We become teachers when we realize in that awakening that we really know nothing.  That is the true learning and it is true learning or 'unlearning" that brings us to this teaching role. (Eckhart Tolle, 2019)

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 this world.
ACIM:TM:4:A:X:3:7

Conceptual Knowledge is not real knowledge

All we think we knew, prior to awakening,  is just conceptual knowledge based on thoughts, ideas, emotions dictated by ego's  "idea" of "me" in "my life".  It is not true knowing.  It is not true understanding of what is real and what it means to "be" who we really are. When we start to awaken and develop the tiniest bit of comfort with not knowing who we are or what anything really is we learn through unlearning and thus have no choice but to teach in one way or another.

In other words it is not conceptual knowledge that we need to be happy and peaceful so therefore we do not set out to learn more conceptual knowledge or to teach it.  We set out to undo the knowledge in our heads that obscures the true knowing. We put down our defenses and our illusions. Once we begin to do so we are guided to teach at a higher level while we discover peace and joy and true knowing.

No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions....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.
 ACIM:TM:4:A:VI:1:6-15


What is this true knowing?

True knowing  is the spacious awareness that exists beyond all the unconsciousness that plagues our planet today. All the identification with story, "me" and "mine" and "my" is what makes up the unconscious world, the "normal" world most of us are lost in.  The over identification with the "interpretations" our minds make about what is going on in each moment forms the basis for our "conceptual" basis of understanding.  Thoughts, feelings, and actions based on our perceptual experiences determines how most of us live.  And since most of us live this way, it is considered normal.

True Knowing is not Normal...yet

This true knowing is what exists beyond dependence on mental concepts to make sense of our world.  It exists beyond the  need to protect and defend to the point of attack and violence.  It is what exists beyond all the book learning and conditioning that gets us to believe that this body and this need to be "normal" is all that is important. It exists beyond our dependence on judging things as "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong" etc  It is what  exists beyond thought.  It is in  the non judgmental , non interpretative spaciousness of true presence and awareness where  true knowing exists. (Eckhart Tolle, 2019)

It isn't normal maybe but it is what brings us peace. Opening our minds beyond what we think we knew frees us from the need for judgment.  Without judgment we find peace.

Open-mindedness comes from with lack of judgment. ...Only the open minded can be at peace, for they alone see reason for it.....
ACIM: TM:4:A:X:1-2

With this open-mindedness we are pulled into the teaching role more and more. We learn and we teach, and we teach and we learn.

No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn.
ACIM: TM:4:A:III:1:11

It is our goal as teachers, one by one, to make this knowing "normal".

We are not special

Another important thing to remember is that we are not special.   There is nothing 'special" about us as human forms in this role. We are just conduits for the teaching to come through. We are not the teaching! The teaching may come in different forms.  We may overtly teach in the traditional manner through lectures, satsangs or the written word.  We may teach through our examples like many of the Saints did.  We may teach through our creative expressions: paintings, poetry, or music.  We may simply teach through our presence.  When we choose to remain present in the midst of unconsciousness we are teaching.  It doesn't matter how we teach, we are not special.

The Teaching is Beyond Us

It is not about the little "me" in us. We do not necessarily set out to teach, though it may seem that way.  The teaching sets out to express Itself through us. As soon as we begin to choose, awareness has already chosen us. If we are getting ego gratification from our role or begin to see ourselves as special because of it...we are no longer teaching.  The ego can't teach. Only the spacious awareness, the presence, the Divine within us can teach.  Ego just gets in the way.

Egoic power is illusion. Eckhart Tolle

Becoming One

I like the way Tolle explains it.  He says we, as human beings, are ripples and within us is the ocean.  We remain isolated and afraid,seeing ourselves as separate ripples living independent lives away from the ocean as long as we are caught up in ego's illusions. We feel afraid, lonely, at risk for harm as long as we feel separated and disconnected.  Ego, our mind stuff, and conceptual knowledge keeps us believing we are separate ripples.   We do not realize we are the ocean and always have been. 

When we learn that we are the Ocean there is no longer a need to fear.  We have entered the spaciousness of what is.  We find peace and joy.  How can we not share that and teach that so all ripples remember who they are...who we, "as a collective whole" are.  We teach simply through our own choice of staying in the vast space of awareness that is us.

The world is calling us to teach.  We are all qualified.  No "conceptual" knowledge required.

All is well in my world.

References

ACIM 2007) Combined Volume : Manual for Teachers. Mill Valley: Foundations for Inner Peace.

Tolle, Eckhart. (January 2019) The Deepest Truth of human Existence. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbvm6tYuP1s