II. The Happy Learner

T-14.II.1. The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom His mission can be happily accomplished. ² You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy. ³ The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for you believe that misery is happiness. ⁴ This has so confused you that you have undertaken to learn to do what you can never do, believing that unless you learn it you will not be happy. ⁵ You do not realize that the foundation on which this most peculiar learning goal depends means absolutely nothing. ⁶ Yet it may still make sense to you. ⁷ Have faith in nothing and you will find the "treasure" that you seek. ⁸ Yet you will add another burden to your already burdened mind. ⁹ You will believe that nothing is of value, and will value it. ¹⁰ A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body or a war are one to you. ¹¹ For if you value one thing made of nothing, you have believed that nothing can be precious, and that you can learn how to make the untrue true.

T-14.II.2. The Holy Spirit, seeing where you are but knowing you are elsewhere, begins His lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that truth is true. ² This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end the only one. ³ Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds. ⁴ Consider all the distortions you have made of nothing; all the strange forms and feelings and actions and reactions that you have woven out of it. ⁵ Nothing is so alien to you as the simple truth, and nothing are you less inclined to listen to. ⁶ The contrast between what is true and what is not is perfectly apparent, yet you do not see it. ⁷ The simple and the obvious are not apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns because of them.

T-14.II.3. All this the Holy Spirit sees, and teaches, simply, that all this is not true. ² To those unhappy learners who would teach themselves nothing, and delude themselves into believing that it is not nothing, the Holy Spirit says, with steadfast quietness:

T-14.II.4. Like you, the Holy Spirit did not make truth. ² Like God, He knows it to be true. ³ He brings the light of truth into the darkness, and lets it shine on you. ⁴ And as it shines your brothers see it, and realizing that this light is not what you have made, they see in you more than you see. ⁵ They will be happy learners of the lesson this light brings to them, because it teaches them release from nothing and from all the works of nothing. ⁶ The heavy chains that seem to bind them to despair they do not see as nothing, until you bring the light to them. ⁷ And then they see the chains have disappeared, and so they must have been nothing. ⁸ And you will see it with them. ⁹ Because you taught them gladness and release, they will become your teachers in release and gladness.

T-14.II.5. When you teach anyone that truth is true, you learn it with him. ² And so you learn that what seemed hardest was the easiest. ³ Learn to be a happy learner. ⁴ You will never learn how to make nothing everything. ⁵ Yet see that this has been your goal, and recognize how foolish it has been. ⁶ Be glad it is undone, for when you look at it in simple honesty, it is undone. ⁷ I said before, "Be not content with nothing," for you have believed that nothing could content you. It is not so.

T-14.II.6. If you would be a happy learner, you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you. ² And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true. ³ For what is builded there is true, and built on truth. ⁴ The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity. ⁵ With truth before you, you will not look back.

T-14.II.7. The happy learner meets the conditions of learning here, as he meets the conditions of knowledge in the Kingdom. ² All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom for you. ³ For truth is true. ⁴ What else could ever be, or ever was? ⁵ This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door that you believe is locked forever. ⁶ You made this door of nothing, and behind it is nothing. ⁷ The key is only the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing. ⁸ Accept this key to freedom from the hands of Christ Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light. ⁹ For, like your brothers, you do not realize the light has come and freed you from the sleep of darkness.

T-14.II.8. Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be free of darkness. ² The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave you asleep. ³ The vision of Christ is given the very instant that it is perceived. ⁴ Where everything is clear, it is all holy. ⁵ The quietness of its simplicity is so compelling that you will realize it is impossible to deny the simple truth. ⁶ For there is nothing else. ⁷ God is everywhere, and His Son is in Him with everything. ⁸ Can he sing the dirge of sorrow when this is true?