LESSON 127
There is no love but God’s.
“Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergences and no distinctions.”
“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.”
“Love cannot judge.”
“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.”
“Love’s meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is.”
What I understand from the first part of this lesson is that God is Love and there is nothing else. If it is not Love it does not exist. The world as I see it with my eyes and experience it through this body is not love and so does not exist. I am not that. I am not here. Me and here are thoughts in my mind and only that.
What I think of as love in this dream is not love at all. How could it be? At its best, it is a pale shadow of love. At its worst, it would be love’s opposite if an opposite of love were possible. In this world the thing we call love is different for different people, things, and situations. It can be bestowed or withheld according to how these things are judged.But love is not that. It does not judge, it does not vary from person to person or change in any way. It is not here but not there.
Even as I begin to understand love, and even as I open my mind and heart to love, I am far from knowing love. Practicing the Loving All Method makes more and more sense as I continue these lessons. And yet, how can it be that I don’t know love? I am love. I am love because my Creator is Love and He created me as part of Himself. So how can I be love and yet not know love? When I sit in quiet and ask to know my Self, I am asking to know Love, to know God. I can do this and will do this because I am asking for what is already mine and is me.
“Seek not within the world to find your Self. 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.”
Jesus says that we only need to give some time to escape from every law in which we now believe. He says I can escape from this world if I do not hold it dear. What law am I holding onto as if it is my salvation? I remember what Regina told me about my son when I was worried. She said that if I remember my Self I will know his Self and then I would not believe his choices could hurt him.
There is a thought in the mind that we have to hold onto what we fear, that we can’t let it go. Even as I surrender my son to God, I feel a frisson of fear, as if there is a law that says my worry is what protects him. That is crazy even to my ego mind. Worry is not love. I have been practicing releasing that insane law.
“Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised this.”
I say that I am practicing letting go of the law that says I have to worry and be afraid because every time I am certain it is done, I notice fear rising up again. But it is working because the fear is not so intense and each time it is easier to release. I call to God to replace my laws for His and His Voice does answer me. I accept the answer as I can and then I call on Him again and He answers again and I accept more.
“…we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self.”
Since worry is not love, when I worry about my son, I am not loving him and I am not seeing him as the love that he is. How I see him is how I will see myself. As I change my mind and choose to see know my son as the perfect creation he is, I will know my Self. So, it works both ways, I think. I can know my Self and so know his Self, or I can know his Self and so know my Self.
“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.”
Regina’s Tips
I remember the first time I read this lesson. I DID think “there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another.” Back then, if a mother had told me that she loves a bug in the same way she loves her daughter, I would have either been appalled or simply unable to imagine it. But today, I am that mother.
The only reason it would be difficult to understand how a mother can love a bug in the same way she loves her daughter is because one has a misunderstanding about what love is. Don’t get me wrong. I have a more intimate relationship with my daughter, a longer-lasting relationship with my daughter, and a human-to-human relationship with my daughter. All of that is different than my relationship with a passing bug. But the love is the same.
My Thoughts
Ha ha. I was having trouble with the idea of loving other children as I loved my children and here Regina takes it to the next level. Can I love my children in the same way I love a bug? But that is the wrong way to ask the question. I love them in different ways but the love is the same. As Regina pointed out, the relationship with my child is different than the relationship with the bug. But the love is the same because all love is the same or it is not love. Again, I am reminded of the Loving All Method. Before I started that practice, I would not have thought of loving a bug and so I would have been even further from knowing love as it exists.
Regina also says this about love.
How does one describe love? Love is openness. It could be described as embracing, accepting or allowing. It is joyous or compassionate, depending on the response that is pulled forth from it by the appearance. It has no lack in it, no need. One could say it is patient, although that is simply an aspect of its openness and allowance. Judgment is an impossibility for it.
My thoughts
That is a good, succinct description and one that calls for contemplation to fully understand and accept. I am particularly drawn to the idea that love has no need in it. I have often said that neediness is not the same thing as love and until neediness is gone from a relationship, I cannot know love. When I need my son to be healthy, I am not loving him.
Manual for Teachers
“Therefore lay judgment down, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude.”
Now that we know we cannot judge, why not lay judgment aside? It is a staggering load. I ask Holy Spirit for guidance in all things. In the Rules for Decision we learned this: “2 For you and your adviser must agree on what you want before it can occur. 3 It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. 4 Nothing can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. 5 Decisions cause results because they are not made in isolation. 6 They are made by you and your adviser, for yourself and for the world as well. “
Also, in the Song of Prayer it says, “You have been told to ask the Holy Spirit for the answer to any specific problem, and that you will receive a specific answer if such is your need. ...There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they be illusions or not.” So I do my best to make no decisions with the ego. That means I must ask the Holy Spirit to be my advisor in every decision.
It is easy enough to tell when I have slipped up and asked the ego for help. I know I have judged when I feel separate from my brother, when I hold a grievance, when I am angry or fearful, when I feel guilty. These are all signs I have picked up the heavy mantel of judgment and am turning to the ego for advice. Those painful reactions are like road signs telling you the path has gotten rocky and impassable and I need to turn around and go the other way, something I am happy to do. When I turn to the Holy Spirit for guidance, my load is light and my way smooth.
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“What am I?” is the question I ask the Holy Spirit frequently. I ask it whenever it comes into my mind. I especially ask this question when I feel trapped in my own beliefs. I have experienced some major shifts recently, and the ego response has been very strong. It can be discouraging to move forward only to meet that wall of resistance.
The ego mind will fight against awakening. If I identify too closely to the ego, I will forget that its thoughts and feelings are not mine. Then I would become confused. Of course, I would become confused! It is like being two people at once, and the two people are completely opposed. I wake up with the thought that I give this day to Holy Spirit, and that thought might be immediately followed by a feeling of anxiety for the coming day.
I reject the second feeling as being ego resistance to surrender. It is the ego demanding its right to make plans and decisions and to decide what everything means. But “I” seem to be having the thoughts and the feelings and that used to be confusing. Now, I understand that I am not my thoughts and that I can choose the thoughts that I want to believe. I give my attention to the true thoughts and remove my attention from the ego thoughts.
How is it that I can do this? The answer to this is the answer to the question, “Who am I?” As Jesus tells us in Lesson 236, the mind is our kingdom and we rule it. Do we want to rule it with the ego as our advisor or with the Holy Spirit as our advisor? The choice we make will determine how happy we are and how quickly we evolve spiritually. I am of the Family of God, part of His Creation. That is the “I” that decides, the “I” that is ruler of the mind, I and the Holy Spirit together rule my mind.
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