Those whom you perceive as opponents are PART of your peace, which YOU
are giving up by attacking them. How can you HAVE what you give up? You
SHARE to have, but you do not give it up yourself. When you give up
peace, you are EXCLUDING yourself from it. This is a condition which is
so alien to the Kingdom that you cannot understand the state which
prevails within it. Your past learning must have taught you the wrong
things, simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone,
its value should be questioned.

If learning aims at change, and that is ALWAYS its purpose, are you
satisfied with the changes YOUR learning has brought you?
Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes must be a sign of learning
failure, since it means that you did not get what you WANT. The
curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have
established for yourselves, BUT SO IS ITS OUTCOME. If the outcome of
yours has made you unhappy, and if you WANT a different one, a change in
the curriculum is obviously necessary.

The first change that must be introduced is a change in DIRECTION. A
meaningful curriculum CANNOT be inconsistent. If it is planned by two
teachers, each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot BE
integrated. If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously,
each one merely INTERFERES with the other. This leads to fluctuation,
but NOT to change. The volatile HAVE NO direction. They cannot choose
one, because they cannot relinquish the other even if the other does not
exist. Their conflicted curriculum teaches them ALL directions exist, and
gives them no rationale for choice.

The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized
before a real change in direction becomes possible. You CANNOT learn
simultaneously from two teachers who are in TOTAL disagreement about
everything. Their joint curriculum
presents an impossible learning task. They are teaching you ENTIRELY
different things in ENTIRELY different ways, which might be possible,
except for the crucial fact that both are TEACHING YOU ABOUT
YOURSELF. Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you LISTEN to both,
your mind will be split about what your reality IS.