Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
LESSON 127 There is No Love But God’s.
- Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you think there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another. Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the heart of God, and also of His Son.
- Loves meaning is obscure to anyone who thinks that love can change. He does not see that changing love must be impossible. And thus he thinks that he can love at times and hate at other times. He also thinks that love can be bestowed on one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. To believe these things of love is not to understand it. If it could make such distinctions, it would have to judge between the righteous and the sinner and perceive the Son of God in separate parts.
- Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God’s, and all of love His. There is no other principle that rules where love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds them both forever as the same.
- No course whose purpose is to teach you to remember what you really are could fail to emphasize that there can never be a difference in what you really are and what love is. Love’s meaning is your own and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is. There is no love but His, and what He is, is everything there is. There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.
- No law the world obeys can help you grasp loves meaning. What the world believes was made to hide love’s meaning and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well.
- Seek not within the world to find yourself. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love’s Voice. Today we practice making free your mind of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the limits under which you live, and all the changes that you think are part of human destiny. Today we take the largest single step this course requests in your advance towards its established goal.
- If you achieve the faintest glimmering of what love means today, you have advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years to your release. Let us together, then, be glad to give some time to God today, and understand there is no better use for time than this.
- For fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe. Open your mind and rest. The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. Withdraw all value you have placed upon its offerings and senseless gifts and let the gift of God replace them all.
- Call to your Father, certain that His voice will answer. He Himself has promised this. And He Himself will place a spark of truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means. He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of love. In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His voice to teach love’s meaning to your clean and open mind. And He will bless the lesson with His Love.
- Today the legion of the future years of waiting for salvation disappears before the timelessness of what you learn. Let us give thanks today that we are spared a future like the past. Today we leave the past behind us, never more to be remembered. And we raise our eyes upon a different present, where a future dawn unlike the past in every attribute.
- The world in infancy is newly born. And we will watch it grow in health and strength, to shed its blessing upon all who come to learn to cast aside the world they thought was made in hate to be love’s enemy. Now are they all made free, along with us. Now are they all our brothers in God’s love.
- We will remember them throughout the day because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self. At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you, and who came to learn what you must learn. And as he comes to mind, give him this message from yourself: I bless you, brother, with the love of God, which I would share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no Love but God’s and yours and mine and everyone’s. [1]
Notes and Personal Application: This morning during our devotional discussion, Lover and I talked about our courtship. It was a torrid affair! We could not get enough of each other. It turned people’s stomachs to be around us sometimes. We were always kissing, feeding each other bits food, leering lustily at each other – we did not care who was around – we wore our love and desire for each other right out there for everybody to see. Looking back it always gives us a good laugh. Sometimes we sort of cringe to tell you the truth, but mostly we just laugh. Very few people held out much hope that our marriage would last, but here is the thing, we were a perfect match. We were in love. We were extremely jealous of each other and guarded toward anyone who posed a threat to what we cherished.
But today Jesus is telling us that there is no love but God’s. We examined the aspects of our courtship and early marriage from within the context of our lesson. Yes, we did think that different kinds of love are possible. There was the way we loved each other, and another way we loved our friends, and yet another way we loved our mothers, and a different degree all together in the way we loved our kids, our relatives, our cat and dog, our house and property, our country, our world, and God.
Love, however, has no separate parts and degrees, no types or different levels, no conflict, no dissimilarities. Jesus explains that it is the same all the way through – it does not change from one person to the next or one circumstance to the next. It is the Heart of God.
This did not illustrate the special relationship we called love! We loved each other more than anybody else in the world. We wanted to go back in time and meet when we were young and greedily and selfishly do away with the stories and characters we had made meantime and start fresh – just the two of us. We would write a new story. We would only let in the ones who pleased us, who did not offend us, who did not tax our patience or take advantage of our goodwill. Our jealousy toward each other nearly destroyed us; Former Ms. Free-Love felt as if she could not look at, smile at, or extend a friendly gesture toward another boy, man, or even statue of a man without James accusing me of wanting someone else! I lit into him one time because I thought he was licking his chops over the Victoria Secret models at the local mall. To believe in what we called love was not to understand it. Love is for all and all for love. Making love a separate entity from the whole of it, making it about us, laying a claim on it, our marriage was doomed.
Seek not within the world to find your Self, Jesus admonishes us in paragraph six. This is not where we find love. I do not find love in the body of my husband. I do not find love in the body of my children, sister, brother, friend. Bodies fail us. Egos get their feelings hurt and use “withholding love” to teach people lessons. Egos use the word “love” to get you to do things for them. “I love you,” someone will say expecting you to go all mushy and offer them your ear, your sympathy, your pocketbook! But Jesus tells us that when we experience love, we will know the difference. It will be a spiritual experience, not an earthly one! It will not be selfish. I will not love James more than anybody else in the world because it is impossible for love to be divided. What I feel toward my children and my grandchildren is what we call love on this plane, but Jesus says nope, it is not love. It is the world’s substitute – that special feeling we have toward our own tribe, our own family, our own community, our country, our church, our clubs, and our passions. Call it love all you want folks, but it is a substitute. Love cannot be found here in darkness and death. The substitute always fails.
No matter how nice it seems, it is cloying and trite. It is a substitute for love because the end is always despair, decay, and death. Jesus instructs us not to hold the world dear. This is not music to our ears. It sounds sacrilegious. We made the institutions of marriage, family, church, and home and now we worship them and not God. Jesus urges us to stop valuing the substitutes of the world, to withdraw all our worship from these false symbols of love and let the gift of God replace them all.
Call to God and trust that He will answer. Let Him show you the truth in this matter, let Him help you give up your false beliefs and show you what love really means. When God shows you what love is, you will not ever look for it again where it can never be found. You will be spared a future like your past. Let all your special relationships be transformed into holy relationships. When we learn that there is no love but God’s love, we will watch the world become healthy and strong. We will let go of the ideas that belong to hate; the specialness, which is love’s enemy. We will watch the world be set free from all the littleness, the meaningless cliques and tribes and factions. We will see all our brothers, indeed all of God’s creation, with the eyes of love. Imagine!
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 127 There is no love…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). pp. 230-232.
Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 