As teachers we build bridges from one thought to a deeper understanding of that thought. As students we decide which bridges to cross and when. This process can be thought of as climbing the ladder of understanding, moving across one bridge and then on to the next. Without a map and a Guide, the journey can be unnecessarily prolonged by crossing the wrong bridge, crossing a bridge too soon or too late or the avoidance of crossing the appropriate bridge all together.

All wrong timing, distraction and misdirection can be avoided by taking direction only from the Holy Spirit and not taking direction from the ego. The Holy Spirit and the ego have diametrically opposed goals. The Holy Spirit’s goal is freedom. The ego’s goal is continued imprisonment. The Holy Spirit will take us the shortest and most direct route home. The ego will distract, misdirect and lead us on an endless, useless journey on the hamster wheel to nowhere.

The Holy Spirit directed journey is…

“We are therefore embarking on an organized, well-structured and carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do not want. He knows what to do with it. You do not understand how to use what He knows. Whatever is given Him that is not of God is gone. Yet you must look at it yourself in perfect willingness, for otherwise His knowledge remains useless to you. Surely He will not fail to help you, since help is His only purpose. Do you not have greater reason for fearing the world as you perceive it, than for looking at the cause of fear and letting it go forever?” (T-12.II.10:1-7)

The Holy Spirit’s journey is about looking at fear and its cause, acknowledging its unreality and letting it go. In contrast, the ego’s journey is about avoiding fear by not looking at its cause, making it real and holding onto it by projecting it. The participant in the Holy Spirit’s journey is inspired and stable. The participant in the ego’s journey is dispirited and unstable.

Teachers, let the Holy Spirit direct our bridge building. It is not our bridge. We are the tool used for its construction. Do not let our little ego self take it and use it for its purpose. We let the bridge be built through us. We place it where and when we are told. We are not concerned with who uses the bridge or when.

We cannot know the plan or what is best for all involved. We hear the Holy Spirit’s admonishment to us to remember the fear of release. We are not concerned with whether the bridge is used now, later or never. We built it at the direction of the Holy Spirit. It is done. Some bridges may remain unused for millennia. Only the self we made cares. Our real self, our servant of the Spirit self, does not.

Students, let the Holy Spirit direct our bridge crossing. He knows what is best, until we remember what we are in truth. As long as we are a mind in which illusions still exist, which most of us are or we would not seem to be here, let us humble the ego and embrace our Guide. He knows how our specific mind needs to be taught, deprogrammed. He knows which bridge we should cross and when.

Our self, that we have made, will have all sorts of reactions to the different bridges. But the bridges are not aimed at that self. They are aimed at the mind that made that self. That is why the Course says it does not matter if you believe the Course or not. It says it does not even matter if we believe in God or not. The self that thinks it believes something or not, is not the intended listener.

“Yet what makes God’s teachers is their recognition of the proper purpose of the body. As they advance in their profession, they become more and more certain that the body’s function is but to let God’s Voice speak through it to human ears. And these ears will carry to THE MIND of the hearer messages that are not of this world, and THE MIND will understand because of their Source.” (M-12.4:1-4)

So, fellow bridge builders and crossers of bridges, let us write what we write and read what we read, do what we do and say what we say at the instruction of the Holy Spirit. He knows everything. Let us sit in front of our screens and let the Holy Spirit direct us. Click here. Do not click there. Read this. Do not read that. Comment on this. Do not comment on that. Post this. Do not post that. Let us take every opportunity to place our communal journey home squarely in His control.