(Paper 0800-49)

ON LOVE

To understand LOVE, it is first necessary to consider TRUTH. TRUTH is simply the fact that GOD IS. GOD and TRUTH are the same word with the same meaning. We say, “GOD IS” or “TRUTH IS,” and then we cease to speak because there IS nothing else, nothing else needed nor nothing else possible. God is ONE, with no other thought outside of IT. God, or Truth, cannot be explained or defined because IT is absolute, always was, is, and will forever be. Therefore, we accept God as fact, or go on wondering about what we can never define in our language and thinking.
Because God (Truth) is absolute, It “desires” to extend Itself to further experience Itself. Sort of like looking in a mirror in self-contemplation. In order to do this, God extended “Himself” and created His One Son, The Christ. The Christ is described as being “all living things,” of which we are part. “Living things” can be thought of as “all the Thoughts of God, in numbers infinite, but in Being, One. If this much of the concept can be understood, we can go on to consider Love.
TRUTH is absolute. It doesn’t move or do anything at all since It is Perfect, Complete, Total, One and Eternal. But to experience or contemplate Itself, it is necessary to put Itself in motion. Such is God’s Extension, The Christ. So in a very simplistic way, we are all God contemplating Himself. Such extension is Love. Love is TRUTH IN MOTION. LOVE IS THE MOVEMENT OF TRUTH (OR GOD).
When God decided to extend Himself, He looked around to find something to extend. Since there was nothing but Him, He extended part of Himself. Such is The Christ, and such are We. And that extension of Truth became Love. Love is what God Is, and Love at that level of creation is what We are also.
So we say that Love, being absolute, can neither be defined nor explained, nor need It be. Therefore, we need not search for the meaning of Love as that is already established, already present as created by God, already ours and dwelling in our spirit mind in perfect completeness and joyousness, eternally. It is ours. We have it, always have had it, and always will have it. So we didn’t have to go looking for it or attempt to make ourself holy to receive it. We already are holy; God made us that in our creation.
Therefore, all that is necessary for us is to search our, discover, and lay aside all the blocks that we have made to the awareness of Love’s presence. Since Love is All, it can neither be threatened nor attacked by anything else, which is unreal and therefore does not exist.

“Nothing real can be threatened,
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
-(Course – Introduction) So Love is real and fear is not, being a product of our doubting, questioning mind called ego. Once we lay aside our doubts and fears, there will our love and peace be, shining within the Power of God, where they have always been!
They are not lost, they have not gone away, but live in the spirit part of our mind right where God created them. It would only be a fool who would try to see the sun with all the blinds pulled down!
We are admonished by the Course to uncover all our hidden fears and guilty secrets and lay them before our Guide, Holy Spirit, for Him to shine them away in His light of God’s Love.
It is ironic to consider that all the insane, destructive, isolating and attacking things we as a race of humans (egos) have ever done have been fuelled by the Power of God. This is a startling concept until we realize that there IS no other power. Therefore, it must be that we have taken the Power of God and misused It for our own nefarious purposes. Perhaps it is now time to recognize this misuse and return God’s Power to Him. God will never prevent us from doing whatever we want because He wants us to prove for ourselves that He is right and we are wrong. He knows that when we finally see this for ourselves, we can return to Him and be the Loving Extension of Himself that He created.
Yes, He could prevent our wanderings but that would not make us be co-creators of His Love that He planned for us to be. That is why His Plan is not complete without any of us and why Heaven waits for our return. Jesus says he cannot “get back home” without us and why none of us can “get back” without all our brothers with us. It is an “all or nothing deal” and waits but for you and me.
Why must love extend itself? It must to meet it’s own description. Consider a brook. It must flow to be a brook. If it did not flow it would be a puddle, a pond or a lake. But it would not be a brook. Similarly, love must flow to be itself.
As we lived in the Heaven of God’s Mind, happily going on creating and extending Love as He intended jus to do, a very small part of us wondered a thought. We wondered, “What would it be like to be better than perfect and have more than everything?” An insane thought obviously, but instead of simply laughing it away, we took it seriously, which made it possible of accomplishment in our mind. God knew otherwise, so He was not concerned. But He also knew we must be given the freedom to explore our insanity in order for us to realize wherein lay our truth and love. God knew we were traveling in our dream, so placed His Holy Spirit (the memory of God’s Love) in our sleeping mind to travel with us ready to remind us of What we were and always Are, when we are ready to ASK Him. He is our Guide back to Truth and Love that, in actual fact, we never really left at all. That is why we are assured of our “eventual” return to Heaven, all of us, no matter how mistaken our thought seems to have taken us from Home.
Our dream of specialness and isolation goes on and on, up one blind alley after another until we finally get tired of our fruitless search for something outside ourself to save us. We then get very still and say, “Enough already, there must be a better way of living and relating within this world, and I am determined to find it."
This becomes the key and the cry that unlocks our door back to Truth and Love, suspends our judgment of everything we thought real, and allows our Guidance to come to us. This is our call for love.
We begin to remember that we are total love and that it is love we are created as. We begin to experience in everyone and everything around us that same love too, and we are on our way Home. We begin, slowly at first, to realize that all the things we thought were real are not so at all and that the only thing that truly is real is God’s Love, present in our spirit mind. As we enter into that space of peace and love, the world and all our earthly cares fade away leaving only our original creation.
We know at an instinctive level that everything happening is necessary for learning for all those involved and that lessons being provided while appearing different for each person are essentially the same to answer our ONE PROBLEM – WE HAVE FORGOTTEN WHAT WE ARE, to which there is only one answer – wake up and remember.
We know, “I am responsible for what I see, I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for and receive as I have asked.” (T-21, II, 2-3:5)
We realize that our mind is the builder and our body/world is the result in which we come to learn our lessons of remembering. There is no BLAME for what is happening or where we think we are and realize we have collectively and individually chosen it for our own eventual best good.
This is the law of CAUSE and EFFECT in action. We realize that it is useless to try to change our world, but essential to change our mind about the world and its purpose for us in it.
If it was OUR CHOICE to be and do what we are, if we should wish to change it – all we have to do is CHANGE OUR MIND about it. The circumstances may not change, but our values towards them will. What you think about things, can bring you back to PEACE; and it is peace that you think you lost and search for. You don’t realize that you never lost it – it has been with you always.
It is just that you have covered it over with so much of your own invention that you can no longer see it.
So you don’t have to go anywhere, seek anything at all outside yourself. All that is necessary is to give up and give over all the things you invented which hurt you. Your Guide, Holy Spirit, waits to take them from you and leave you as originally created in perfect peace, love, and happiness, eternally. But He can’t take them until you offer them to Him. Say, “I no longer want this thing that hurts; I lay it here; You please take it away and leave me my peace and love.”
Remember: - You are Love. That is all you are and so you can extend It without any judgment whatsoever. In any situation you can say, “Although I do not agree (understand) what you are doing/ saying/ thinking, “I want you to know that I love you very much.” That is how we recognize our brother as love and recognize ourself as love also. And so you –
“Teach only love, for that is what you are.”

THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SIGHT

For a better appreciation of the commentary below, please first read the sub-section of this name in the Course, Chapter 21, ”REASON AND PERCEPTION.”
The Course emphasizes how little is asked of us to understand it and to achieve our own salvation. We need not DO anything from our own decision, but simply let go of all our beliefs, investments, and special thoughts; then accept the Guidance of Holy Spirit, already present in our spirit mind. This letting go and giving over is the little gift we offer to Holy Spirit so that He can do His work in us.
By this means we stop crucifying ourself with all our fears, lack and guilt and accept the resurrection of our true Self as what we really are. We can ignore Truth or reject It, but we can never totally lose It or destroy It. To come back to Truth through the Guidance of Holy Spirit is the way Jesus in his Course has answered God’s Call and arranged our pathway home. If we choose not to follow, we have judged that this little willingness is too much to pay for peace.
We must give up our judgment that others outside us have done things to us or led us in paths toward pain. No one can affect us except us. We are responsible for what we see, feel, and experience, and we receive only what we have chosen. It is sometimes difficult to accept the responsibility for all that happens to us, in our world, our body, and our mind. It is impossible that happenings that come to you are not your choice.
Sin is separation. Every time you feel alone, attacked or lacking, you have decided you believe you have successfully separated from your Self as part of the Christ, Heaven, and God your Creator. This will give rise to feelings of guilt and fear, which naturally follow such a decision and belief. It is your choice to either suffer or be happy. To live in happiness is the gift you give Holy Spirit so that He may give it back to you for yourself and to share with your brother. When you share your happiness with your brother, he shares his with you. And so, you give salvation to each other as you both walk together hand in hand back Home to God.
This little willingness is all that is required of you, but no less. For this little, everything is given you again that you may share and so be saviour to the world. In this little offering is fear exchanged for love, lack for plenty, pain for joy, and specialness for the Oneness of God.
You made the world. Why could you not? You have all the Power of God within you, given you in your creation. You can use it as God intends – to extend love – or you can mis-use it to create insanity and fear. You have the power. But you also have the power of choice, and this choice used correctly will place you under the care and guidance of Holy Spirit. This will put you back within the Love of God and the peace, joy and eternity It guarantees.
The world you see is simply the mistaken thought of what you thought was real. Change your mind about it, and it will change instantly to the World of God’s Kingdom. As you look with new vision at your brother and your world, you will see yourself as changed too, back again to the Son that God created.
While you hold against this change of mind, you are keeping your ego firmly in command. All that the ego is is the thought that the Son of God can be affected by forces outside himself and thus deny the Will of God. This is the mad idea we have invented and keep firmly placed upon our altars.
The Holy Spirit can give us another vision but we must first be willing to give up our self-made mad idea. We set up many idols to represent our ego and defend them tenaciously since we have made them. They become our truth and the symbol of what we are.
Recognition and experience of the holy instant come of vision and suspended judgment. Enter just once into that quiet defenceless place within your mind devoid of time, space, judgment, or body, and you will never be the same again. You will know you have looked through a window on Heaven, know that you are One with everything without the need to know what “everything” is or the need to define it.
We do not have to undo all our mistaken thoughts, but we do have to be willing to have them undone for us. Such is our job, and such is Holy Spirit’s. We have had great faith and desire, but we have had it for the wrong values.
“It is as needful that you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create yourself. They are the same mistake.” (T-21.II.11: 1) Nothing not created by God can have any effect over you. If you think what you have made can have influence over you, you are denying God and making yourself your own creator.
Once you see that whatever seems to separate you and your brother from God you made, the instant of release has come to you. You are then no longer held prisoner in your own experience of separateness and isolation and are free once again to remember the ONENESS of yourself, your brother, God and Heaven.

“I AM ABOUT MY FATHER’S BUSINESS.”

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