FINAL LESSONSIntroduction

We come now to the Final Lessons. Lessons 361 to 365 are combined in one, the theme of which, appropriately, is the Holy Spirit. He is also the theme of this lovely Introduction. At the workbook’s conclusion, Jesus leaves us in the Holy Spirit’s charge to continue our journey, as he has throughout. In addition, embedded in this final theme is the reminder that our purpose in the world is forgiveness, through which the memory of God returns to our minds.

(1:1-2) Our final lessons will be left as free of words as possible. We use them but at the beginning of our practicing, and only to remind us that we seek to go beyond them.

Jesus is continually reminding us of our purpose, which is reflected here in not making words into reality. Thus the words of A Course in Miracles are not sacred, but their source – the love that inspired them – most certainly is. That love is in all of us, and so we need to be reminded again and again as we go through our day that our purpose is to learn forgiveness – the means of undoing guilt and returning with our brothers to the home that lies beyond all words and symbols.

(1:3- 4) Let us turn to Him Who leads the way and makes our footsteps sure. To Him we leave these lessons, as to Him we give our lives henceforth.

The purpose of this one year of practice has been learning to be secure in the awareness that the Holy Spirit is the only true Teacher. Thus it is His lessons, guidance, and Love we would follow. When we are tempted to be upset, sick, angry, or otherwise preoccupied with our specialness, it is because we first pushed Him away and chose the ego instead. That is why our vigilance needs to be focused on the ego’s lies as the means of remembering the Holy Spirit’s truth. It is our minds that need vigilance, to choose against believing in the ego and choosing for God and His Kingdom – the third of the Holy Spirit’s three lessons. Thus does our corrected belief undo the ego’s doubt, allowing us to move beyond all belief to the Certainty of God:

The third step is thus one of protection for your mind, allowing you to identify only with the center, where God placed the altar to Himself. Altars are beliefs, but God and His creations are beyond belief because they are beyond question. The Voice for God speaks only for belief beyond question, which is the preparation for being without question. As long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by any doubts in your mind, His perfect accomplishment is not apparent to you. This is why you must be vigilant on God’s behalf. The ego speaks against His creation, and therefore engenders doubt. You cannot go beyond belief until you believe fully (T-6.V-C.7).

(1:5) For we would not return again to the belief in sin that made the world seem ugly and unsafe, attacking and destroying, dangerous in all its ways, and treacherous beyond the hope of trust and the escape from pain.

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Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick Lesson 361

encourages us never to make it again. From that one mistake the world of treachery, danger, and pain arose, and who in his right mind would ever choose its cause, when forgiveness gently beckons us to a world of peace and safety?

(2:1-2) His is the only way to find the peace that God has given us. It is His way that everyone must travel in the end, because it is this ending God Himself appointed.

A Course in Miracles is only one spiritual path; but whatever path we choose – regardless of its symbols – the only way we reach home is to relinquish belief in the self that believes in separation, anger, pain, and death. Through joining with the Holy Spirit in our right minds, we undo the faulty belief system we had accepted. Forgiving ourselves for our mistakes – born of fear, not sin – opens the certain way home, regardless of its form, as we read again:

Forgive yourself your madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all goal-less aims. They have no meaning. You can not escape from what you are. For God is merciful, and did not let His Son abandon Him. For what He is be thankful, for in that is your escape from madness and from death. Nowhere but where He is can you be found. There is no path that does not lead to Him (T-3 1.IV.11).

(2:3-4) In the dream of time it seems to be far off. And yet, in truth, it is

already here...

It is a fact that the peace of God is already here – in the presence of the right-minded truth of Atonement. Moreover, in the holy instant we are outside time and space, so there is no longer a journey to the peace that is ours. We find a similar expression in the manual for teachers, where Jesus speaks of the world’s end: “When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over” (M-14.2:10). He continues:

Certainly this seems to be a long, long while away. “When not one thought of sin remains” appears to be a long-range goal indeed. But time stands still, and waits on the goal of God’s teachers. Not one thought of sin will remain the instant any one of them accepts Atonement for himself (M-14.3:1-4).

Since the Atonement is fully present within us – its very presence reflects its acceptance – the separation has already been undone. Recall these lines from the opening to Chapter 28:

This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while (T-28.I.1:6-7).

Thus Jesus reminds us that his peace is here, merely awaiting our choosing it –

again.

(2:4-5) And yet, in truth, it is already here; already serving us as gracious guidance in the way to go. Let us together follow in the way that truth points out to us.

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Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick Lesson 361

Truth is used as a synonym for the Holy Spirit, in Whose Love and Presence there is no time or space. Joined with Him in the holy instant, we no longer worry about how far we have to go, nor how long the journey’s duration. Concerns about the ego being so strong that we can never get free of it are thoughts that occur only within the dream of linear time: past sins, present guilt, and future fear of punishment. When we are outside the dream with Jesus, we realize these thoughts, too, are just a defense against the truth that has guided us so graciously to itself.

(2:6) And let us be the leaders of our many brothers who are seeking for the way, but find it not.

Jesus does not mean we are to be leaders in any external or behavioral way. We lead simply by having chosen the Holy Spirit’s Love. When that is our choice, we become the hand that reaches out, just as Jesus was the hand that reached for ours. We now can say to our brothers that the same choice we have made they can make, too; the journey we have embarked on welcomes them as well. Recall that in Psychotherapy, Jesus comments on the need for the therapist to be his patient’s leader, even as he is being led by his Therapist:

The psychotherapist is a leader in the sense that he walks slightly ahead of the patient, and helps him to avoid a few of the pitfalls along the road by seeing them first. Ideally, he is also a follower, for One should walk ahead of him to give him light to see (P-2.III.1:1-2).

(3:1-4) And to this purpose let us dedicate our minds, directing all our thoughts to serve the function of salvation. Unto us the aim is given to forgive the world. It is the goal that God has given us. It is His ending to the dream we seek, and not our own.

Our purpose is to learn the lessons of forgiveness so that we can help ourselves and others. God’s ending is that we awaken from the dream, whereas ours is to become happier and pain-free figures in the dream. Thus we make the decision to accept God’s function of forgiveness rather than our own; the Holy Spirit’s rather than the ego’s:

Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask, rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your unforgiving mind.... On earth this is your only function, and you must learn that it is all you want to learn.... Before you make any decisions for yourself, remember that you have decided against your function in Heaven, and then consider carefully whether you want to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide against deciding what you want, in recognition that you do not know. How, then, can you decide what you should do? Leave all decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for your function as He knows it (T-14.IV.3:4-5, 7; 5:1-4).

(3:5) For all that we forgive we will not fail to recognize as part of God Himself.

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Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick Lesson 361

the ego’s dreams have told us. Thus do we lift the veil of the ego’s principle of one or the other, and happily see the sinlessness of God’s one Son in all we meet or even think about:

A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His sinlessness. High has the ladder risen.... Now can you say to everyone who comes to join in prayer with you:

I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me.

And so he is in truth.... For you have understood he never left, and you, who seemed alone, are one with him (S-1.V.3:3-5, 8-10,12).

(3:6) And thus His memory is given back, completely and complete.

We forgive by seeing the face of Christ in our brothers, and then we remember God. Recall these words that nicely summarize A Course in Miracles’ quintessential formula for healing:

When brothers join in purpose in the world of fear, they stand already at the edge of the real world.... For when they joined their hands it was Christ’s hand they took, and they will look on Him Whose hand they hold. The face of Christ is looked upon before the Father is remembered. For He must be unremembered till His Son has reached beyond forgiveness to the Love of God. Yet is the Love of Christ accepted first. And then will come the knowledge They are one (T-30.V.7:1, 4-8).

(4:1) It is our function to remember Him on earth, as it is given us to be His Own completion in reality.

This refers to our dual function: in Heaven it is to create, which means we are the completion of God; on earth it is to forgive, that we would come to remember our true function and Who we are as Christ. Thus Jesus helps us undo the ego’s function of blocking God’s, by teaching us to fulfill our function of forgiveness. Removing this block restores to our awareness the joy of creation – extending the Love of God from His Self to ours, knowing They are One. The following passage from the text summarizes the two functions – forgiveness removes the barriers of separation among the Sons of God, restoring to our awareness the completion of God’s one Son as spirit and its extended fullness as Christ:

The extension of God’s Being is spirit’s only function. Its fullness cannot be contained, any more than can the fullness of its Creator. Fullness is extension. The ego’s whole thought system blocks extension, and thus blocks your only function.... The Kingdom is forever extending because it is in the Mind of God. You do not know your joy because you do not know your own Self-fullness. Exclude any part of the Kingdom from yourself and you are not whole. A split mind cannot perceive its fullness, and needs the miracle of its wholeness to dawn upon it and heal it. This reawakens the wholeness in it, and restores it to the Kingdom because of its acceptance of wholeness. The full appreciation of the

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Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick Lesson 361

mind’s Self-fullness makes selfishness impossible and extension inevitable. That is why there is perfect peace in the Kingdom. Spirit is fulfilling its function, and only complete fulfillment is peace (T-7.IX.3:1-3; 4).

(4:2) So let us not forget our goal is shared, for it is that remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and to the Heaven of His peace.

In this world goals are not shared, because it is a world ruled by the principle of one or the other. Thus, I will get to Heaven – my Heaven – standing on your shoulders, pushing you down: as you descend, I ascend. The essence of forgiveness is realizing we – reflecting Heaven’s Oneness – share the same purpose, goal, and need. That is why remembering our shared goal contains the memory of God. Recall this important passage on remembering God through perceiving the common mind uniting the Sonship, despite the ego’s fog of guilt that would keep us divided:

The light in them [our sick brothers] shines as brightly regardless of the density of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it has none. For it has power only if the Son of God gives power to it. He must himself withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God. You can re- member this for all the Sonship. Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is yours. But your remembering is his, for God cannot be remembered alone. This is what you have forgotten. To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your brothers with Him, and God’s Answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember (T-12.11.2).

(4:3-5) And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer this to us? He is the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us. In him resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him.

John’s gospel has Jesus say: “I am the way, the truth and life” (Jn 14:6). Yet here Jesus says: Yes, I am the way, the truth, and the life, but so are you as part of God’s one Son. Learning to forgive someone you perceive outside you – realizing he is the Son of God along with you – is the way you return to the truth and the life.

The Holy Spirit teaches one lesson, and applies it to all individuals in all situations.... When I said “I am with you always,” I meant it literally. I am not absent to anyone in any situation. Because I am always with you, you are the way, the truth and the life. You did not make this power, any more than I did. It was created to be shared, and therefore cannot be meaning- fully perceived as belonging to anyone at the expense of another (T-7.III.1:1, 7-11).

(5:1) We will not end this year without the gift our Father promised to His holy Son.

God’s gift to us is forgiveness, which, as we now see, brings with it the happy realization we were mistaken – about ourselves, our brothers, and our Source.

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Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick Lesson 361

(5:2-7) We are forgiven now. And we are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to God, and found it was a dream. We are restored to sanity, in which we understand that anger is in- sane, attack is mad, and vengeance merely fool- ish fantasy. We have been saved from wrath because we learned we were mistaken. Nothing more than that. And is a father angry at his son because he failed to understand the truth?

Jesus is reminding us again of the importance of humility, of being able to say with sincerity and gratitude that we have been wrong. We need be humble enough to acknowledge that the insanity he just described is present in practically every thought, behavior, and goal we have during the day. Yet we need also accept that God is not angry because we believe we attacked Him – our Father never even saw the “attack.” Jesus uses this symbol of a father because it is such an important one for us. Thus the symbol of the angry father the ego has made is corrected to the Father Who never ceases to love His Son. Recall the discussion in “Atonement without Sacrifice” (T-3.I.1-2), in which Jesus says the following of God, in the context of the traditional Christian belief that he suffered and died for our sins:

If the crucifixion is seen from an upside-down point of view, it does appear as if God permitted and even encouraged one of His Sons to suffer because he was good. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which arose out of projection, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God. Such anti-religious concepts enter into many religions.... In milder forms a parent says, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe our Father really thinks this way? (T-3.I.1:5-7; 2:7-8)

In truth, of course, there is no Father and Son. There is no separation at all, and so the belief in sin, guilt, and fear – the foundation for believing in the wrath of God – does not exist The Father has never ceased to love His Son.

(6:1) We come in honesty to God and say we did not understand, and ask Him to help us to learn His lessons, through the Voice of His Own Teacher.

Honesty says, “I am mistaken.” How frequently Jesus comes back to this pivotal theme! Again, you want to practice this honesty in the very specific events of your life. Try to catch yourself adamantly insisting you are right, which but demonstrates you are wrong – proclaiming your superiority in being right implicitly makes someone else inferior. This means you are seeing differences and separation, winners and losers – the hallmarks of the special relationship. Thus the need for honesty in realizing you understand nothing about love – between brothers, and between God and His Son – and that the idols of specialness have brought you nothing but misery and pain:

Be speeded on your way by honesty, and let not your experiences here deceive in retrospect. They were not free from bitter cost and joyless consequence.

Do not look back except in honesty. And when an idol tempts you, think of

this:

There never was a time an idol brought you anything except the “gift of

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Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick Lesson 361

guilt. Not one was bought except at cost of pain, nor was it ever paid by you alone.

Be merciful unto your brother, then. And do not choose an idol thoughtlessly, remembering that he will pay the cost as well as you (T-30.V.9:11-10:6).

(6:2-3) Would He hurt His Son? Or would He rush to answer him, and say, “This is My Son, and all I have is his”?

This is an interesting passage, based on the gospel parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), wherein the errant son returns to the father who rushes gladly to meet him. The eldest son, who remained faithfully at home with his father, complains about his brother being given such a royal welcome, including a feast to be held in his honor. The father essentially replies to him: “I love both of you, and all I have is yours.” In other words, neither brother loses anything by the father’s love: the father loving son A does not preclude his loving son B. Comparisons are always of the ego, for love makes none (T-24.II.1:1) and we are loved equally by our Father. In this one workbook sentence, therefore, Jesus combines into one the responses the father makes to the prodigal son who returns, as well as to the son who remained. Needless to say, having split minds, we are both sons.

(6:4-5) Be certain He will answer thus, for these are His Own words to you. And more than that can no one ever have, for in these words is all there is, and all that there will be throughout all time and in eternity.

Throughout all time, when we choose Jesus as our teacher he will reflect to us the Love of God and the abundance of His treasure, which we are – there can be no lack in God’s Son. Throughout eternity, we remain a part of our Source – there is nothing else. The practice of this glorious message in our daily lives entails seeing how we manifest the scarcity principle that is opposite to abundance: the belief in lack, wherein we feel there is something missing in us. The ego takes this belief and teaches that what we lack someone has taken – the fourth law of chaos (T-23.II.9-10). Though not always in awareness, this one-or-the-other belief of winners and losers is present in our minds, and we need realize that in thinking that God plays favorites we assert He is insane. Yet this insanity is only in our minds, as is God’s sane answer. His abundance is the response to the ego’s scarcity, for how can we lose not only the love we have, but the love we are? Recall this passage from early in the text:

In your own mind, though denied by the ego, is the declaration of your release. God has given you everything. This one fact means the ego does not exist, and this makes it profoundly afraid. In the ego’s language, “to have” and “to be” are different, but they are identical to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows that you both have everything and are everything. Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of “getting,” which implies a lack, has already been accepted. That is why we make no distinction between having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God (T-4.III.9).

We are now ready for the final five days of lessons.

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Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick Lesson 361

LESSONS 361 to 365

This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, Certain that Your direction gives me peace.

Again, Lessons 361 to 365 are one, and focus on the Holy Spirit. They reflect our having achieved the workbook’s goal, which was to learn we have a split mind: we were mistaken in choosing the ego, and we correct that mistake by choosing the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, this is how the lesson begins.

In the Introduction to the sixth review, Jesus told us he is placing us in the Holy Spirit’s charge. Now we place ourselves in the Holy Spirit’s charge. The clear implication is that we have learned Jesus’ lesson and realized our mistake, knowing there is a principle of correction in our minds to which we can go, and which will bring us peace. We therefore undo the original error when we chose against the Holy Spirit and in the unholy instant asked the ego to be in charge. The world, then, is nothing but a projection of that original unholy instant. Now we happily change our minds, glad to have been wrong and grateful to be living in the Holy Spirit’s holy instant of forgiveness.

(1:1-4) And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me. If I need a thought, that will He also give. And if I need but stillness and a tranquil open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him. He is in charge by my request.

“He is in charge by my request” – this is most important. It is not that Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to us; we actively choose Him. To make that choice is thus our goal throughout the day.

(1:5) And He will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and His holy Son.

We will see this same thought expressed in the Epilogue. As long as we believe we are bodies living in the world, we will experience the abstract presence of the Holy Spirit’s Love as meeting us where we believe we are. We will think He is helping us in all the specific ways in which we experience our need, as we read in the clarification of terms:

The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with Both. And therefore it is He Who proves Them One. He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He speaks God’s Word to you. He seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. He seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have. But He is not deceived when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these He would deliver you. It is from these that He would make you safe (C-6.4).

However, as we continue our journey home, after completing the journey through the workbook, we realize that help is not specific at all, for the only reality is the abstract Love of God. It is to this Love we make our certain way with our Guide, Teacher, and Comforter, Whose Love leads us to the peace of God and everlasting life.