final (or last) step

 

final (or last) step

Our final awakening to Heaven, in which God Himself will lift us home (sometimes depicted in romantic or parental imagery of God gathering us into His embrace; see W-pI.168.3:4, W-pI.317.2:5). What fully restores to us the memory of God. Our job, with the Holy Spirit’s help, is to attain the state of perfect right-mindedness or true perception in which we retain not a trace of opposition to (or fear of) the heavenly state. Yet even then there will be a gap between our perception and knowledge, which we cannot bridge. It is God Who bridges this gap, reaching down to lift us into Heaven. He will do this the instant we have no resistance to Heaven—we do not have to wait on Him or on our brothers. We play no part in this step, because we did not put ourselves in Heaven in the first place. And lifting us back into Heaven is somehow the same act as bringing us into Heaven in the beginning. Thus, the last step was paradoxically accomplished in the first step—our creation by God (see T-13.VIII.3). See T-7.I.6-7, T-18.IX.10.