Only love is strong because it is UNDIVIDED. The strong do not attack
because they see no need to do so. BEFORE the idea of attack can enter
your mind you must have PERCEIVED yourself as weak. Because you had
attacked yourself and believed that the attack was EFFECTIVE, you behold
yourself as weakened. No longer perceiving yourself and all your
brothers as equal, and regarding yourself as WEAKER, you attempt to
“equalize” the situation YOU have made. You use attack to do so because
you believe that attack was successful in weakening YOU.

That is why the recognition of your OWN invulnerability is so important
in the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your
invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack HAS no effect. Although
you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will demonstrate that
NOTHING HAPPENED. Therefore, by attacking you have not done ANYTHING.
Once you realize this there is no longer any SENSE in attack, for it
manifestly DOES NOT WORK, and CANNOT protect you. Yet the recognition of
your invulnerability has more than negative value. If your attacks on
yourself have FAILED to weaken you YOU ARE STILL STRONG. You therefore
have no need to “equalize” the situation to establish your strength.

You will never realize the utter uselessness of attack EXCEPT by
recognizing that your attack on YOURSELF had no effects. For others DO
react to attack if they perceive it, and if you are trying to attack
THEM you will be unable to avoid interpreting this as re-inforcement.
The ONLY place where you can cancel out all re-inforcement is in
YOURSELF. For YOU are always the first point of your attack, and if THIS
has never been it HAS no consequences.

The Holy Spirit’s love is your strength, for yours is divided and
therefore not real. You could not trust your own love when you have
ATTACKED it. You cannot learn of perfect love with a split mind because
a split mind has MADE itself a poor learner. You tried to make the
separation eternal because you wanted to retain the characteristics of
creation with your own CONTENT. Yet creation is NOT of you, and poor
learners need special teaching. You have learning handicaps in a very
literal sense.

There are areas in your learning skills which are so impaired that you
can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a
Teacher Who can TRANSCEND your limited resources. He BECOMES your
Resource, because of YOURSELF you CANNOT learn. The learning situation
in which you placed yourself IS impossible, and in this situation you
clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum. Poor
learners are not good choices for teachers, either for themselves or for
anyone else. You would hardly turn to THEM to establish the curriculum
by which they can ESCAPE from their limitations. If they understood what
is beyond them they would not BE handicapped.

You do not know the meaning of love, and that IS your handicap. Do not
attempt to teach yourselves what you do not understand, and do not try
to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. YOUR
learning goal has been NOT to learn, and this CANNOT lead to successful
learning. You cannot transfer what you have not learned, and the
impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning
failure. Would you ask those who have FAILED to learn what learning aids
are FOR? THEY DO NOT KNOW. For if they could interpret the aids
correctly they would have learned from them.

We have said that the ego’s rule is, “Seek and do NOT find.” Translated
into curricular terms, this is the same as saying, “TRY to learn but do
NOT succeed.” The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every
legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible
guide to learning WILL BE MISINTERPRETED. For they are all for learning
facilitation, which this strange curriculum
goal is AGAINST. If you are trying to learn how NOT to learn, and are
using the aim of teaching to DEFEAT itself, what can you expect BUT
confusion? The curriculum does not make SENSE.

This kind of “learning” has so weakened your mind that you CANNOT love,
for the curriculum you have chosen is AGAINST love, and amounts to a
course in HOW TO ATTACK YOURSELF. A necessary minor, supplementing this
major curriculum goal, is learning how NOT to overcome the split which
made this goal believable. And you can NOT overcome it, for all YOUR
learning is on its BEHALF. Yet your will speaks against your learning as
your learning speaks against your will, and so you fight AGAINST
learning and succeed, for that IS your will. But you do not realize,
even yet, that there IS something you DO will to learn, and that you can
learn it because it IS your will to do so.

You who have tried to learn what you do NOT will should take heart, for
although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is
merely ridiculous, if you look at it. Is it POSSIBLE that the way to
achieve a goal is NOT to attain it? Resign NOW as your own teachers.
THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of
an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the
learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the proper learning
conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will
become excellent learners AND teachers. But it is not so yet, and will
not BE so until the whole learning situation, as YOU have set it up, is
reversed.

Your learning POTENTIAL, properly understood, is limitless because it
will lead you to God. You can TEACH the way to Him AND learn it, if you
follow the Teacher Who knows it, and His curriculum for learning it. The
curriculum is totally unambiguous because the goal is NOT divided, and
the means and the end are in COMPLETE accord. You need offer only
UNDIVIDED ATTENTION. Everything else will be GIVEN you. For it is YOUR
will to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the will of God’s Son. His
learning is as unlimited as HE is.