P. 292-302
I am taking a few liberties here and sharing some reflections that are not as “linear.” These thoughts might not neatly follow paragraph by paragraph from the book.
The challenge here is to go beyond the abstract understanding of love, to go beyond physical and emotional understanding of love, to go beyond personality’s understanding of love. Each one of these carries its own baggage, its own weight its own definitions and its own limitations.
A cynic one-time stated, “We are told to love our neighbor as ourselves and unfortunately most of us do!” Conditional love, or limited love or love that is defined my expectation, is the personality self’s way of understanding this energy. It does not have the ability to comprehend unconditional love and because it does not have that capability as yet, it's sense of love, its experience of love, will always remain in limitation.
You cannot love unconditionally with a vehicle that cannot experience unconditional love. So that you can neither give nor receive unconditional love through the personality self. I believe there will come a time in our evolution when the personality or ego-self will be able to allow itself to be loved unconditionally, but even in that high state of vibration, the personality or ego-self will not love unconditionally. The creative power of unconditional love flows only to and from the divine nature the truth of Who You Are.
As long as we are identified with our limited nature, then our experience of love will also be limited. We are like beings with blinders on but we do not know we have blinders on and so we do not realize that we are hindered buy our own created limitations.
I would suggest that there are many more experiences of unconditional love then we give ourselves credit for. Moments when we are simply still, devoid of conflict; when we are communing with nature or sitting with a child or simply experiencing our heart being open, when we are being in the present moment. This is Love without any labels.
“When we say something is too vast to be explained, it is never too vast to be known.”
I would like to share a few “definitions” of love that might help.
From Robert Heinlein's book A Stranger in a Strange Land; “Love is that state where someone else's happiness is essential to your own.”
I have a long history with that description.
When I first came across it in the 60’s it seemed to make perfect sense to me. When I got into recovery, it began to sound very co-dependent and not very healthy at all. Today it vibrates within me in a whole different way.
Years ago I was viewing thr concept of happiness in an emotional and personality sort of way. Today I would translate that concept of happiness on a deeper level of understanding to mean more to be at peace with.
I can certainly relate that to ones whom I love, but is not about me controlling them. In the old way, I might have thought, if you were not at peace then I needed to do something to make you be at peace. Today it is more that if I perceive you not at peace, “how can I love you? how can I help you raise your vibration to a level of peacefulness?” And if you are in a state of consciousness that pushes me away, “how can I still hold you in the light of love?”
And then there is the entirely different or new awareness that we are all One, As the Mahayana school of Buddhism would say, “The boat does not leave until everyone is on it.” Or the poignant image from A Course in Miracles of Jesus or the Christ Consciousness standing at the open door to Union with the Father and saying to all beings, “I will not go through the door until everyone else enters.”
From Sheldon Kopps’ book If You Meet the Buddha on the Road Kill Him he states, “Sometimes love means living with the helpless knowing that I can do nothing about another person's pain.”
I will add an extension to that quote in the moment, but I learned the essence of that truth when I was consoling my mother after my father made his transition. What I discovered was that as much as I wanted to take her pain and her grief away, it was necessary for her to do whatever it was she needed to do. I could be with her in love and compassion; I could also be with her in her pain, but I could not take it away. What I would add to that quotation is, “Sometimes love means living with the helpless knowing that I can do nothing about another person's pain, but I can be present to them. I might not be able to take your pain away but, I can be with you in your pain; I can remind you that you are not alone.
Scott Peck in The Road Less Travelled describes love as being “The ability to stretch oneself for one’s own spiritual growth or the growth of another.
With Peck’s definition we enter into the realm of Spirit more deeply. We come to the awareness that we know exactly what he means, and yet it would be very difficult to try to explain or define his words any further .
Again: “When we say something is too vast to be explained, it is never too vast to be known.”
Two instances from Christian scripture that describe the “stretching” that Peck refers to is Jesus famous quote about turning the other cheek-- Matthew 5:38-40 New International Version (NIV)
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
Most of us would not be tempted to do that literally, But… this is what thousands did in India as Gandhi was leading them to freedom.
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
Most of us would not be tempted to do that literally, But… this is what thousands did in India as Gandhi was leading them to freedom.
When Jesus was challenged about which was the greatest commandment, the Scribes and the Pharisees thought that they were trapping him into a corner--you would have to pick one of the 10 and then of course they would find all sorts of objections. But as usual he had the upper hand. Quoting from older scripture, he said the greatest commandment is “to love God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and your whole strength and the second one is like unto to this, love your neighbor as yourself.” then some wise-ass asked, “And who is my neighbor?” The answer was given through the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here is a modern-day version of that metaphor:
There was once a man who was planning an act of violence and terror. As he was traveling, he was jumped, beaten and robbed by a gang who cared for only themselves.
They left the man at the side of the road, bloody and dying.
A priest, a man of God, walked by, and saw him there and moved to the other side of the street. The man cried out for help, but the priest pretended he did not hear. He needed to get to his church, his congregation was depending on him.
In the same way, a doctor, a healer, walked by on his way to the hospital where he worked, and saw the man who was now moaning in pain. The doctor too moved to the other side of the street. He could not afford the chance of a malpractice suit.
A construction worker came by, saw the man and heard his cry, he started going over, but he decided not too, he just couldn’t get involved. I mean who knows what that person might have been involved in.
A family went by, Dad, Mom and the kids; they too saw and heard the man, they were tempted to help him, but someone said, “maybe it’s a trap, a setup; we better not stop.”
And finally an off-duty policeman walked by. He was thinking about his brother officers he lost on 9/11. He saw and heard the man. He went over, saw the man, and knew what and who he was. Initially he was filled with anger and the urge to inflict more pain and revenge, but he also remembered he was Christ in Training, and so was the wounded man in front of him. The officer got a blanket, wrapped the man in it, and carried him to his car. He tended his most serious wounds and then drove him to the nearest hospital emergency room, where he enlisted the care of a physician he knew. He said treat him as you would a fellow officer, I will come by later and check on him. I’m good for any expenses.”
They left the man at the side of the road, bloody and dying.
A priest, a man of God, walked by, and saw him there and moved to the other side of the street. The man cried out for help, but the priest pretended he did not hear. He needed to get to his church, his congregation was depending on him.
In the same way, a doctor, a healer, walked by on his way to the hospital where he worked, and saw the man who was now moaning in pain. The doctor too moved to the other side of the street. He could not afford the chance of a malpractice suit.
A construction worker came by, saw the man and heard his cry, he started going over, but he decided not too, he just couldn’t get involved. I mean who knows what that person might have been involved in.
A family went by, Dad, Mom and the kids; they too saw and heard the man, they were tempted to help him, but someone said, “maybe it’s a trap, a setup; we better not stop.”
And finally an off-duty policeman walked by. He was thinking about his brother officers he lost on 9/11. He saw and heard the man. He went over, saw the man, and knew what and who he was. Initially he was filled with anger and the urge to inflict more pain and revenge, but he also remembered he was Christ in Training, and so was the wounded man in front of him. The officer got a blanket, wrapped the man in it, and carried him to his car. He tended his most serious wounds and then drove him to the nearest hospital emergency room, where he enlisted the care of a physician he knew. He said treat him as you would a fellow officer, I will come by later and check on him. I’m good for any expenses.”
Too far fetched” Too impractical?
“As each one of you comes forth in the announcement of being—“I am here, I am here, I am here”—you have claimed the Kingdom, but you don’t understand yet what being in the Kingdom means. And it does mean you become as love, and not in a convenient way, because the idealization that you would make for love is still imprinted by those who’ve come before you.
If you can imagine loving with the depth of your being each human being you encounter because you know what they are, you will understand what this means. The idea that love could be known in convenience, could be impartial to the needs of another—the idealization of what you think love is—must be met now to re-create you as the conduit for its expression. And we will use the teaching of truth to support you in this.”
If you can imagine loving with the depth of your being each human being you encounter because you know what they are, you will understand what this means. The idea that love could be known in convenience, could be impartial to the needs of another—the idealization of what you think love is—must be met now to re-create you as the conduit for its expression. And we will use the teaching of truth to support you in this.”
“On this day I decide that any belief in love or any attributes to love that I have decided upon that are out of alignment with truth will be re-created in a higher way. And as I claim these words, I support my entire being in attuning to the frequency of love as may be known as and through me. On this day I claim that I am in alignment to love, and the vibration of love as what I am in its expression will reclaim a world through my being. As I say these words, I know them to be so. I know who I am in love. I know what I am in love. I know how I serve in love. I am here. I am here. I am here.”
“Now, as we give you love as the instruction of the day, once again you balk. “How am I to be love?” Paul asks.
You are love already is what we respond as. You are love already. You all are. It is the truth of your nature as being of God. You don’t learn love, you learn behavior. You allow love to be as you, and in the agreement to be as it, it is as you in all ways. The depth of love we hold for you will not be described because there are no words. The depth of love that is you cannot be articulated because it is so true, in such truth, that nothing else exists at that level of vibration. And the being as this calls the world to you, and you become its shepherd.
Yes, we use the word intentionally. You become its shepherd. The being that you are in love teaches others by being as you what they can be and what they truly are. This was always the teaching of the Christ, and it always will be. The one who says, “Follow me,” and is in love is encouraging all to be as they can be in the same truth in union with its Source.”
And I would be horribly amiss if I did nto include thsi marvelous passge from Paul: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
And I would be horribly amiss if I did nto include thsi marvelous passge from Paul: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
In love and gratitude.
Peace
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