Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God’s teachers, and they
will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They
were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he
will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His
pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it
is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they
are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not whom he
will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will
be provided for him.

In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is
necessary to grasp the concept of time which the course sets forth.
Atonement corrects illusions, not the truth. Therefore it corrects what
never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and
completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from
time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant the idea of
separation entered the mind of God’s Son, in that same instant was God’s
Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never
happened at all.

The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems
to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to
be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is
looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach.
Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at
any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always
there. As the course emphasizes, you are not free to choose the
curriculum, or even the form in which you will learn it. You are free,
however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept it, it
is already learned.

Time really, then, goes backward to an instant so ancient that it is
beyond all memory, and past even the possibility of remembering. Yet
because it is an instant that is relived again and again and still
again, it seems to be now. And thus it is that pupil and teacher seem to
come together in the present, finding each other as if they had not met
before. The pupil comes at the right time to the right place. This is
inevitable because he made the right choice in that ancient instant
which he now relives. So has the teacher, too, made an inevitable choice
out of an ancient past. God’s Will in everything but seems to take time
in the working-out. What could delay the Power of eternity?

When pupil and teacher come together a teaching-learning situation
begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the teaching.
God’s Teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning purposes.
The relationship is holy because of that purpose, and God has promised
to send His Spirit into any holy relationship. In the teaching-learning
situation each one learns that giving and receiving are the same. The
demarcations they have drawn between their roles, their minds, their
bodies, their needs, their interests, and all the differences they
thought separated them from one another, fade and grow dim and
disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one interest and
one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God
Himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him.
He has seen in another person the same interests as his own.