Before going to our final lessons, let’s review the special themes:

What is Forgiveness? Forgiveness is recognizing yourself as the unaffected Self. Therefore, “what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.”

What is Salvation? Salvation is healing by “failing to support the world of dreams … it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust.”

What is the World? It is a “false perception” where “mechanisms of illusion … go to find what has been given them to seek.” Yet, “all perception can be given a new purpose.”

What is Sin? Sin is ignorance or outward focus. “Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined issuing from thoughts that are untrue.”

What is the Body? “The body is a fence” that seems to separate us from everything else. It makes duality seem real and makes it seem as if we experience duality directly. However, its purpose can be changed.

What is Christ? Christ is consciousness. It is the process of creation and the unaffected witness of creation. It is what we are. It is our higher Self. (Note: There is a more ultimate reality beyond Christ, compared to which Christ is an illusion.)

What is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is a Judeo-Christian term for spiritual intuition, which issues forth from our Self as consciousness. Its sole purpose is to help us awaken to consciousness. Once this goal is accomplished, its purpose is done. (God takes the last step to awaken us beyond consciousness.)

What is the Real World? The real world is the world as it is seen from the perspective of consciousness. It is a world blessed by forgiven eyes, seen through true perception. The real world is still a dream, but it is a dream that reflects Truth. It prepares us for the next and final awakening.

What is the Second Coming? It is the first awakening, awakening to our Self as consciousness. From this awakening we see with true perception and experience the real world.

What is the Last Judgment? It is the second and final awakening, awakening beyond consciousness into Nirvana. With this step, consciousness itself is seen to be untrue.

What is Creation? “Creation” is a term A Course in Miracles uses for eternal reality. It is known after the death of our sense of self as mind-consciousness. It is our true Self beyond any sense of self. It is our actual existence.

What is the Ego? It is the sense of self. The lower ego is the self-centered self, sometimes called the lower self. Usually when people use the term “ego,” they are referring to the lower self. However, the higher Self or “I am presence” is also part of the ego sense of self. The lower self is separation consciousness, and the higher Self is unity consciousness. Both the lower and higher selves are transcended when the final awakening occurs.

What is a Miracle? Miracles are shifts in perception that move one from the lower self to the higher Self. Some people refer to these shifts as awakenings, although each shift is a subset of the total awakening experience. Awakening to consciousness (the higher Self) may be gradual or sudden and varies greatly among individuals.

What am I? The answer to this question can be known as a direct experience when the sense of self disappears completely.

Peace be to me, the holy Son of God. Peace to my brother, who is one with me. Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.

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What Am I?

Although our final special theme did not directly answer the question, “What am I?” it has given us some final thoughts to contemplate before A Course in Miracles Workbook for Students comes to an end.

We were given these words to contemplate as pointers to what we are:

• Complete and healed and whole
• Guaranteed eternal life
• Love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite
• The holy home of God Himself
• Sinlessness Itself
• Purity

We were also told:

The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. Yet we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us. …

And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to serve.

As the workbook nears its end, we are left with a decision to make. Do we want to practice our function here to the best of our ability so we can prepare ourselves for the final awakening, which is the realization that answers the question, “What am I?”

How committed are we to discovering the answer to the workbook’s final question?

God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.

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What Am I?

Our special theme says, “We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.”

Our special theme began with the question, “What am I?” and ended with, “disappear into the Heart of God.” In between that beginning and ending, although we were given words to contemplate, we were not given an answer to the question, “What am I?” That answer comes best in those last few words, “disappear into the Heart of God,” especially in the word “disappear.”

I’d like to share something that was written by Floyd Henderson, a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj. In his book, The Final Understanding, Floyd wrote:

Thus, the invitation is (to those ready, and only for those ready) to receive the final understanding…

Go back—follow the trail in order to trace what you think yourself to be. Move back from (8) the conception to (7) a sperm set into motion to spontaneously seek an egg to (6) an act of friction to (5) plant food cells being transformed into sperm and egg cells to (4) plant food being prepared and eaten to (3) plant food being acquired to (2) plants growing to (1) the elements.

Where in that chain—which can be traced back and can be seen to have been repeated for trillions upon trillions of times for millions upon millions of years on this planet—could you possibly claim the existence of any “you-ness” or “You-ness”?

Who would want to make such a claim? Only one motivated by arrogance, … Only one so trapped in one or more ego-states and in so much egotism that one would want to trace his or her lineage back to some “famous, big name people” and beyond that to “God” or “a god” or “a goddess” or some “Supreme Self.”

It may take time for some of you to contemplate the significance of what Floyd points to in this excerpt. It was more quickly apparent to me, because my dad pointed to this on a hike with me in Southern Missouri about 25 years ago, and I have had ample time to contemplate it since then.

I asked my dad what his spiritual beliefs were. My dad has never been a religious man, so I had no idea what he thought when it came to spirituality. He told me that one day he would die and be buried in the ground; his body would turn to dirt and mix with the soil; plants would grow in that soil; birds and animals would eat the plants, and then they would die and mix with the soil, so on. In that way he would live forever.

My dad was communicating truth. He is not my dad. He is not his body, his personality or his mind. He is not his sense of being human. He is not even the sense of “I am.” He is life, which continues as forms come and go. There is no “me” in life. There is no “you” either. And that is the answer to the question, “What am I?”

Each of us needs to come to this answer through our own unique, genuine awakening process. Therefore, the best our special theme could do to answer the question, “What am I?” is give us this word:

Disappear

When “me” disappears—when even the “I am” of consciousness disappears—then and only then is the answer to, “What am I?” known.

No call to God can be unheard nor left Unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.

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What Am I?

Our special theme says, “We are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts.”

With these words, our special theme points to one of the objectives for Gentle Healing Year 2. I don’t mean that we are going to become evangelizers. In fact, I feel it is a mistake to overtly or covertly attempt to convert someone. It’s better to allow everyone to be as they are.

What I mean when I say that our special theme points to a Year 2 objective is that we will use words to discover “that [His Word] is written on our hearts.” Or said another way, we will use contemplation and writing to discover the clarity that lies within us.

Our first year has been focused on learning from teachings that appear outside of us. Although learning has a place on the spiritual path, learning can only take us so far. The real purpose of the spiritual path is to learn who we are. A part of learning who we are is realizing the wisdom that lies within us.

Over the past several days, I have asked you to select an excerpt from our daily lesson and write based on that excerpt. In Year 2, daily writing will be a key component of the curriculum. Each day you will contemplate a thought from Thoughts of Awakening: 365 Thoughts for Contemplation, and you will write with inner wisdom based on that day’s thought. The purpose of this writing is to discover the wisdom that is waiting to be discovered inside of you. (Speaking into a recorder is also an option.)

Although there are similarities in spiritual paths, no two awakening processes are exactly alike. Each one walks a unique spiritual path. Your way is written on your heart, and so you must go within, find it and follow it. Your inner wisdom is your teacher, and it is the key to your awakening.

Nisgargadatta Maharaj referred to the outer guru as “time-bound” and “not forever.” He said the outer guru “fulfills his purpose and yields his place to the next.” He continued, “The outer represents the inner; the inner accepts the outer—for a time.”

We could say that the outer guru is like training wheels, which help to get us started but limit how far we can go. When one is ready and the training wheels are removed, one soars to previously unimagined heights with the inner guru.

I do not feel I would be a truly effective teacher if I did not help you become Self-reliant with your inner teacher. Although it is nice to be appreciated, I hope to make myself completely unnecessary within two years. In fact, I hope to make all outer teachers unnecessary for you. For now, I hope you will trust me and do as I say, because it is my intention to effectively hand you off to your inner teacher.

Truth answers every call we make to God, responding first with miracles, and then returning unto us to be itself.

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.

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What Am I?

Our special theme says, “Ours are the eyes through which Christ’s vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world as sinless. Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world.”

What jumps out at me from this excerpt is, “Ours are the eyes … Ours are the ears … Ours the minds…” In other words, we are the ones that have the direct experience of awakening.

Direct experience is different from belief, and belief is different from faith.

As we have already seen, faith is important on the spiritual path. We cannot know the direct experience of what lies ahead of us. The fact that it “lies ahead” means it is not our experience yet.

When we have faith in the direct experience of masters, we are motivated to continue this journey so we can find out for ourselves. Faith is a motivating factor.

However, belief has an opposite effect. Belief is intellectual. When we believe something is true, we do not have a driving motivation to find out. We think we know.

It is fair to say that faith has a healthy amount of doubt in it. It isn’t the kind of doubt that holds us back. It is the kind of doubt that isn’t satisfied until one knows for herself, from her own experience.

Belief doesn’t doubt in that way, nor has it gone far enough to know for itself. Belief is a type of delusion, where one pretends to know what he doesn’t know.

Direct experience is the only means of knowing. It is firsthand experience. For example, the only way to know what a pineapple tastes like is to bite into one. You can never know the taste of a pineapple by reading about it or by listening to others describe it. At best, you can only imagine it.

As another example, most humans who live on earth believe in death. However, no living human knows death as a direct experience. No living human has tasted death directly. Death is perceived indirectly when we see a body. The living sees a body and thinks “death.” Death is an intellectual belief. It is not a direct experience.

Death is an example of a belief.

Awareness is an example of direct experience.

Faith trusts the teachings of masters enough to want to find out, but it seeks the proof of direct experience and will not settle for belief.

It is important for a spiritual aspirant to have enough faith in the teachings to seek direct experience. However, like a scientist, the genuine spiritual aspirant has no use for belief. Belief is seen as the cause of delusion.

Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him.

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.

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What Am I?

Our special theme says, “We do not seek a function that is past the gate of Heaven. Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are concerned only with giving welcome to truth.”

“Our part” is spiritual practice, like the spiritual practices listed in my tip from Lesson 352. It’s interesting to note, however, that spiritual practice cannot take us across the threshold into the final awakening. We can’t make the crossing through the self’s will or effort. Bernadette Roberts wrote about this in the conclusion of her book, “The Experience of No-Self.” She wrote:

Of our own accord we cannot cross the line into the unknown; only God knows if we are ready for such a step, only he can take us across and see us through. In fact, self never crosses the line, it simply ceases to be.

However, it is important to note that she also wrote:

Having made this journey I now see clearly, that a dimension unmistakably exists beyond anything that could be described as self’s union with God… For the contemplative to regard such a union as the final or ultimate consummation of his spiritual life is a grave mistake. He is setting his sight at a midway point, which I now see is too low, too close-in, and too narrow. At this point he may be so centered in God that he is still subject to the illusion of self’s deification… Whenever possible, it is best to get beyond such a point, even when letting go means surrendering this union with all of its experiences and ensuing qualities of strength, love, certitude, and much more; for as long as there is any feeling, knowledge, or inkling that any self remains, … we have not gone far enough.

In the first excerpt that I shared from Bernadette’s book, she said that we cannot cross the threshold of the final doorway “of our own accord.” In the second excerpt, while referring to the state of awakening that the Course calls true perception, she emphasized that even there, it is best to continue surrender and letting go.

It is as NTI Revelation states:

The world is an illusion, and so everything you experience as you let go of the world is illusion also. … You are to keep moving by letting go until you find yourself with nothing left to hold onto.

This reminds me of Mooji’s story of the Yogini, who let go of what appeared to be divine experiences in order to awaken to Truth. It also reminds me of Dr. David Hawkins words in the video I shared with you recently. He said:

Having surrendered everything, there was nothing left. … There was nothing left to surrender. And then came the knowingness, “Yes, except your life.” And then I got, “This to must be surrendered to thee, O Lord.”

In other words, spiritual practice will not usher us across the threshold to the final awakening, but until the crossing over occurs, spiritual practice is needed up to and including the last moment on this side of the crossing. In fact, the closer we are to the crossing over, the more mastery we need in spiritual practice.

One temptation that can occur after achieving the first awakening is that one feels awake and puts aside spiritual practice. However, Bernadette Robert’s warns of what can happen if we make this mistake:

At this point [the contemplative] may be so centered in God that he is still subject to the illusion of self’s deification…

NTI Revelation echoes this point. It says:

True desire must lead in the last days of the thinking mind, for the thinking mind will try to disguise itself as true desire. For this, you must remain on watch. … In the hour when true desire is nearly full force, the thinking mind will look for a way to lead you from your true desire, possibly also by leading you to think you are fulfilling it.

This is what “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” points to. Whenever you feel self-satisfaction in the role you have been asked to play, know that role is not true desire. For true desire never leads to a role that is satisfactory to the self. True desire leads only from self to the wholeness of the realization of truth. …

The only way to pass through the tests of the thinking mind, without being led astray by false desire, is to remain fully focused on true desire now. There is no other way.

And so it is worthwhile to repeat that although spiritual practice will not usher us across the threshold to the final awakening, until the final awakening occurs it is advisable to continue with spiritual practices like surrender, inquiry, meditation and abiding unaffected. That’s because, until the final crossing over occurs, we are vulnerable to the subconscious ego. We need to remain alert through spiritual practice. In fact, the closer we are to the crossing over, the more mastery we need in spiritual practice in order to make ourselves available for the final awakening without turning back or slipping into a delusional false enlightenment.

It is helpful to see spiritual practice and humility as synonymous. Spiritual practice is humility, because through spiritual practice we remain the student. Humility is the opposite of egotistical self-importance. Humility prepares us for God’s final step. It is safe to say that ultimate humility is absolutely necessary for final awakening.

There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word. Why not today?

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.

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