How I Used Truth - Lesson 4 - Annotation 6
How do counselors, teachers, and friends often stand in the way of a person's attaining a desired consciousness?
6. Counselors, teachers, and friends can stand in the way of a person's unfoldment by allowing him to look to them personally for help. Instead, the student or friend should be taught that God within is his "help in every need" (The Prayer of Faith). He must learn that God within is the source of his health and supply, and he must be taught how to contact this Source.
A teacher sometimes carries a student along by doing work for him that he should do for himself. The student then gets the habit of depending on the teacher, and places his faith in him rather than in God. By doing this, the student is relying on something outside of himself instead of placing his faith in the creative life principle within. If someone else worked our problems in mathematics for us, or translated our language texts, we would never become proficient in either mathematics or languages.
If a person needs help at any time, it is a good plan for the counselor or teacher to pray with him rather than just for him. This encourages the student or friend to seek the divine intelligence and power in himself. By so doing he builds a consciousness of faith in God to guide his life. The Christ Spirit is always responsive when it is called upon, and can be trusted to do the work. The Annotations for Lesson One, How I Used Truth, bring out clearly that we have no need of a mediator other than our own indwelling Christ or I AM. A counselor, teacher, or friend cannot possibly interpose between a person and his own indwelling Lord. Allowing one to be dependent on someone outside himself may cause him to delay his own inner search, his own adventure of "finding the Christ."
Friends and students should be taught to recognize and have faith in their indwelling Lord, which Jesus called "the Father" and about whom He said, "The Father abiding in me doeth his works" (John 14:10). When students or friends seek help in finding the pathway of Truth, they should be taught how to pray aright. Thus they will become consciously acquainted with the loving Father who is the source of all the good they can ever desire and more.
If a person comes to a counselor or teacher seeking help for a dear one, he should be urged to pray to remove any anxieties he may have concerning that one. Only as he is established in the consciousness that God is in charge of his own life can he know the same thing for his dear one. It often becomes necessary for a counselor or teacher to point out to a person who is unduly concerned over a loved one, that the greatest help he can give is to hold that person in prayer by seeing him as the illumined child of God. If someone who seems to have temporarily lost his way is aware of another's anxiety, this can have the effect of pushing him further away in consciousness from the real solution. If, on the other hand, he is aware only of loving concern that makes no attempt to interfere, he feels at ease and may even ask for help. In any event, by not having to face another's anxious concern, he is in a much better position to hear and listen to the "inner voice" of God once he has been stirred to desire a change. The text (page 50) reads, "I could not urge anyone to leave his own light and walk by my light." The "light" that was given to each one of us -- "the light which lighteth every man" (John 1:9) -- is the Christ light. This "light" will give infallible directions for each individual soul. Sometimes what to one person may seem a failure is in reality a working out of the guidance given by this "light."
Overcoming (spiritual progress or growth) is an individual process. The wise counselor or teacher does not attempt to solve a problem for the student. He has learned that he can effect no permanent change by attempting to do for others what they must do by the application of their own spiritual resources. A new state of consciousness -- of health, vitality, harmony, abundance -- is attained by the student or friend only as he is left free to seek the source of such good within himself.
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Preceding Entry: What causes a person to seek that which is higher than he is now experiencing?
Following Entry: To whom should each soul turn for guidance?
