Corresponding Manual for Teachers Section

Chapter 5: Student / World Questions

2. How Will the World End?

Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in Gentleness, will cover it, dispelling at last all belief in separation and evil, and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone.

The source of all illusions is the belief that they have a purpose, that they serve a need, or gratify a desire. Understood as purposeless they are no longer perceived. Their uselessness is recognized, and they are gone. How but in this way are all illusions ended? They have been brought to Truth, and Truth beheld them not. It merely saw beyond the meaningless.

Until forgiveness is complete, the world does have a Purpose. It becomes the home in which forgiveness is born, and where it grows and becomes stronger and more all-embracing. Here is forgiveness nourished, for here it is needed. Here is the gentle Awakener, born where the belief in separation was made and guilt seemed real. Here is Its home, for here there is need of It indeed. It brings the ending of the world with It.

It is the Call of awakening that the Divine’s Teachers answer, turning to this Call in silence to receive Its Word:

The world will end when all things in it have been rightly evaluated by the Holy Spirit, and when the world itself has been rightly judged by the Divine’s Judgment. The world will end with the Benediction of Holiness upon it. When not one thought of separation or sin remains, the world will be over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be.

Certainly this seems to be a long, long while away. “When not one thought of separation or sin remains” appears to be a distant future goal indeed. But time stands still, and waits on the Goals of the Divine’s Teachers. Not one thought of separation or sin will remain the Instant any Teacher of the Divine completely accepts the Atonement for themself. It is not easier to forgive one illusion of separation or sin than to forgive all of them. The illusion of levels and orders of magnitude of difficulty is an obstacle the Teachers of the Divine must learn to pass by and leave behind. One belief in separation or sin perfectly forgiven by one Teacher of the Divine can make awakening complete. Can you understand this? For it is meaningless to the thought system of the world. Yet it is the final Lesson in which Unity is restored. It goes against all the thinking of the world, but so does Heaven.

The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed. Until then, bits and pieces of its thinking will still seem sensible. The final Lesson that brings the ending of the world cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach. What, then, is the function of the Teachers of the Divine in this concluding Lesson? They need merely to be willing to go in Its Direction, to learn how to approach It. They need merely trust that if the Divine’s Voice tells them It is a Lesson they can learn, that they can learn It. They learn not to judge It either as hard or easy. Their Teacher points to It, and they trust that It will show them how to learn It.

The world will end in Joy because it is a place of sorrow. When Joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in Peace because it is a place of war. When Peace has come, what then is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who any longer weeps? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world.

In blessing does the world depart, for it will not end as it began. To turn nightmares of hell into the Reality of Heaven in the awareness of themselves and their sisters and brothers is the function of the Divine’s Teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected. And now sit down in true humbleness, and realize that all the Divine would have you do you can do. Do not be arrogant and say you cannot learn Its Own Curriculum. Its Word says otherwise. Its Will be done. It cannot be otherwise. And be you thankful it is so.