3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING?
M-3.1. The teachers of God have no set teaching level. 2 Each teaching-learning situation involves a different relationship at the beginning, although the ultimate goal is always the same; to make of the relationship a holy relationship, in which both can look upon the Son of God as sinless. 3 There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach. 4 However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. 5 Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. 6 There are no accidents in salvation. 7 Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. 8 They are ready for each other.
M-3.2. The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite superficial. 2 It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters; a "chance" meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult "by chance," two students "happening" to walk home together. 3 These are not chance encounters. 4 Each of them has the potential for becoming a teaching-learning situation. 5 Perhaps the seeming strangers in the elevator will smile to one another, perhaps the adult will not scold the child for bumping into him; perhaps the students will become friends. 6 Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. 7 That moment will be enough. 8 Salvation has come.
M-3.3. It is difficult to understand that levels of teaching the universal course is a concept as meaningless in reality as is time. 2 The illusion of one permits the illusion of the other. 3 In time, the teacher of God seems to begin to change his mind about the world with a single decision, and then learns more and more about the new direction as he teaches it. 4 We have covered the illusion of time already, but the illusion of levels of teaching seems to be something different. 5 Perhaps the best way to demonstrate that these levels cannot exist is simply to say that any level of the teaching-learning situation is part of God's plan for Atonement, and His plan can have no levels, being a reflection of His Will. 6 Salvation is always ready and always there. 7 God's teachers work at different levels, but the result is always the same.
M-3.4. Each teaching-learning situation is maximal in the sense that each person involved will learn the most that he can from the other person at that time. 2 In this sense, and in this sense only, we can speak of levels of teaching. 3 Using the term in this way, the second level of teaching is a more sustained relationship, in which, for a time, two people enter into a fairly intense teaching-learning situation and then appear to separate. 4 As with the first level, these meetings are not accidental, nor is what appears to be the end of the relationship a real end. 5 Again, each has learned the most he can at the time. 6 Yet all who meet will someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become holy. 7 God is not mistaken in His Son.
M-3.5. The third level of teaching occurs in relationships which, once they are formed, are lifelong. 2 These are teaching-learning situations in which each person is given a chosen learning partner who presents him with unlimited opportunities for learning. 3 These relationships are generally few, because their existence implies that those involved have reached a stage simultaneously in which the teaching-learning balance is actually perfect. 4 This does not mean that they necessarily recognize this; in fact, they generally do not. 5 They may even be quite hostile to each other for some time, and perhaps for life. 6 Yet should they decide to learn it, the perfect lesson is before them and can be learned. 7 And if they decide to learn that lesson, they become the saviors of the teachers who falter and may even seem to fail. 8 No teacher of God can fail to find the Help he needs.