Lesson 127
There is no love but God’s.
1. Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. ²Perhaps 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. ³Love is one. ⁴It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. ⁵It is like itself, unchanged throughout. ⁶It never alters with a person or a circumstance. ⁷It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son.
Just like everything that shows up in the world of separation, love seems to come in many different forms and degrees. It seems perfectly normal to us that we love each other differently and to different degrees, according to the person we are thinking of. And don’t get me started on chocolate and sunsets and my favorite movies. Maybe you love travel or love your jobs, or maybe you are one who doesn’t care for either. This view of love is normal here in a world that was made to see separation that love would be separated and seen differently for different purposes.
But love itself, the love that is what we are and what God is, the very heart of us is not something that is different moment to moment, situation to situation. In form, love may seem to be different depending on the relationship. I am in relationship with my computer and I love it. I am in relationship with my children and I love them. The relationships are different so it seems like the love is different but that is an illusion. There is not a special kind of love for computers and a different kind of love for children. Love simply is in the way that God is. Love doesn’t change, it is we who change the way we think of love and experience love.
2. Love’s meaning is obscure to anyone who thinks that love can change. ²He does not see that changing love must be impossible. ³And thus he thinks that he can love at times, and hate at other times. ⁴He also thinks that love can be bestowed on one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. ⁵To believe these things of love is not to understand it. ⁶If 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.
I was thinking about my family. There are members of my family that I love more than others, or at least that is my thought. But what does that even mean? Love cannot be divided up, one portion for this person and a different portion for another. What I must mean is that my ego likes certain things about another ego. And those preferences are different for each person and even in different circumstances with the person so that it seems I love a relative more sometimes than other times. But these preferences are not love, they are limits we place on something without limits.
That’s why the world is an illusion; we keep designing it to do impossible things and then pretending it is happening. The problem with thinking of love as something we can manipulate according to our moods and neediness has caused us our understanding of love. Whole we cannot change love nor destroy it, we can believe we have done so and what we believe is true for us.
3. Love cannot judge. ²As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. ³Its meaning lies in oneness. ⁴And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. ⁵There is no love but God’s, and all of love is His. ⁶There is no other principle that rules where love is not. ⁷Love is a law without an opposite. ⁸Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them both forever as the same.
First, love cannot judge. It must be then, that if I think I love this one more than the other, what I feel is not love because love cannot do that. To choose to love more or less requires judgment and as Jesus says, love cannot judge. That is just me trying to manipulate reality again. And if I try to change love, I will not understand love nor will I know love. If I ask myself why I love this one or that one and there is any reason at all in my mind, love will elude me because I have destroyed its meaning. What I have done is qualified the relationship according to my perceived needs and neediness is not love.
It is clear from this paragraph that we really don’t know what love is. We think of love as an emotion and it is experienced as an emotion, but Jesus describes it as principle, as law, and says there is no other. Then it says this: ⁸Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them both forever as the same. How arrogant we are to think we can use love for our own low purposes. The moment we start thinking of love in parts and as changeable according to our personal desires, we have lost awareness of love because it is no longer recognizable as itself to the mind that doesn’t understand it.
4. 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. ²Love’s meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. ³For what you are is what He is. ⁴There is no love but His, and what He is, is everything there is. ⁵There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.
God is love and therefore so are we because we are extensions of God. God is all things and so we are all things. God is unlimited and therefore we are unlimited. To say Love is all things and Love is unlimited is just another way of expressing that God is these things and that we are these things. When I think of it this way, I don’t love this or that, I am love and that love extends to this or that without condition and without exception because love is unlimited and does not judge.
5. No law the world obeys can help you grasp love’s meaning. ²What the world believes was made to hide love’s meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. ³There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well.
I was thinking about the ocean. I can’t really say that there is water in the ocean because the water is the ocean. In the same way, I cannot say that there is love in us or love in God. We are the love as the water is the ocean. And the ocean doesn’t judge what is within its waters as deserving of ocean. It simply is the ocean for everything within it. As we allow our minds to heal of our untrue beliefs and become aware of our true nature, we will become aware of love and love will flow through us without our self-imposed limits. We will be like the ocean, but instead of water, love will flow over all.
6. Seek not within the world to find your Self. ²Love is not found in darkness and in death. ³Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love’s Voice. ⁴Today 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. ⁵Today we take the largest single step this course requests in your advance towards its established goal.
It always comes down to this; if we are to know our Self, we must stop believing in what is not our Self. We do that by becoming aware of all beliefs that are not true and willingly release them to the Holy Spirit for removal or transformation. In this way, we free the mind of all limitations and all false thinking and what we are is revealed to us. Love is revealed. I have done this in two ways.
One way I did this was to become vigilant for my thoughts so that I could learn which thoughts brought me closer to awakening and which ones slowed this process down. Then I could honestly choose to be free of the ones that were not relevant to my goal. That was the main process I used.
There is another way and that is to simply know your goal and to rest your mind in God allowing it to be healed. I am not as good at this and am still mastering it. My mind is a busy place and this personality doesn’t like to slow down. But I am approaching this differently today. Instead of fighting the resistance, or trying harder to change my behavior in relation to meditation, I am flowing over it with the love I am.
7. 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. ²Let us together, then, be glad to give some time to God today, and understand there is no better use for time than this.
8. For fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe. ²Open your mind and rest. ³The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. ⁴Withdraw all value you have placed upon its meager offerings and senseless gifts, and let the gift of God replace them all.
Jesus reminds us that slipping out of the world for a few minutes every day can be enormously helpful to us. He calls it resting and I get that. The world is a busy place and so completely unstable as to be exhausting. It was made to be that for us to keep us distracted from reality. But we, those who are on this path, are ready to turn from the distractions and embrace reality. It is interesting to see what in the world draws our attention and to realize that this is what we are giving value to, more value than we give God. Once we see it that way, it is easier to change our mind.
9. Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. ²He Himself has promised this. ³And 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. ⁴He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of love. ⁵In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach love’s meaning to your clean and open mind. ⁶And He will bless the lesson with His Love.
We don’t have to change our behavior when it comes to love. We just have to see it as it is and our behavior automatically happens. And we don’t even have to figure out what love is or try to come to some understanding through mental gymnastics. We only need to become still and invite Truth into our mind. It will come at our invitation as long as we don’t block the way with our desire for something else.
10. Today the legion of the future years of waiting for salvation disappears before the timelessness of what you learn. ²Let us give thanks today that we are spared a future like the past. ³Today we leave the past behind us, nevermore to be remembered. ⁴And we raise our eyes upon a different present, where a future dawns unlike the past in every attribute.
The problem with the future is that we keep dragging the past into it. We don’t have to keep doing that. We can forget both past and future and live in the present moment allowing it to be holy. To do this, we must let go of the past which we have been holding in place through memory. May we let that memory go and accept a future free of what has never brought us perfect happiness and unending peace.
11. The world in infancy is newly born. ²And 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. ³Now are they all made free, along with us. ⁴Now are they all our brothers in God’s Love.
This is why we must release the past if we want to be happy. The past was made to be love’s enemy. The past is a prison. In love there is no past. There is just an ever-present extension of itself. In the present, in love, we free everyone along with us.
12. We will remember them throughout the day, because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self. ²At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you, and who came to learn what you must learn. ³And as he comes to mind, give him this message from your Self:
⁴I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you. ⁵For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God’s and yours and mine and everyone’s.
What a beautiful practice for today. As soon as I read it and before I could even think about it, a name came into my mind. I offered the blessing to her with joy and I look forward to seeing who else comes forward for my blessing. Each one I bless represents everyone because love doesn’t discriminate and love leaves no one out.