“Resign Now as Your Own Teacher”: Letting Go of Our Need for Control [STAFFCLS]

Dr. Jeffrey Seibert and Dr. Rosemarie LoSasso

We all believe that we have a good idea about what we need to take care of ourselves and how to get it, based on our many years of experience in dealing with life’s challenges. And judgment, based on that experience, is our most useful and trusted tool. Judgment provides the basis for gaining some degree of control and security in our dealings with the world, although never all the control and security we would like. In response to this less than happy-making situation, Jesus encourages a re-evaluation of our life-long strategy: “Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted” (T-12.V.8:3-5).  We are being asked to reconsider all assumptions we have made from our body-identified perspective about our role in bringing about our happiness and sense of safety and instead relinquish control to a Teacher who knows where and how the experience we truly seek can be found.  Through readings and discussion, these classes explore what our need for control is really covering, and what it means to resign as our own teacher. The classes also examine the resistance that students are likely to encounter in letting go of their need to control the process, and the various expressions that it may take.