What is God? (Part 3)

God is Love
We’ve all heard the expression “God is Love,” but what does this statement really mean? Well, it means this: God, being the Causal Source of Perfect Love, extended His Mind-Self -- through the Creative Force of Perfect Love -- to create more Perfect Love. God is, therefore, the Causal Mind or Generating Source of the Divine Idea of Perfect Love, the Creative Force is the Absolute Divine Will through which God extends or projects that Divine Idea, and the Sonship or Christ-Mind is the Creation, Effect, or end result of that three-party creative process.

Being the Father's thought-creation, the Son must and will remain forever in the mind of its Source. Being an extension of the God-Mind, the Son also shares its Father's creative powers. The Son also can, therefore, expand Creation by extending its "Mind-Self" -- the created effect of God's first extension. God's Son or Effect can NOT, however, extend its "Mind-Self" unless it 1) shares the Father's Will and 2) obeys the Father's established laws for Perfect Creation.

Before we get into what the Father's Will and Laws dictate, let's clarify what Jesus means by the phrase "Perfect Love." For starters, he means a kind of love that is not of this world and, therefore, incomprehensible to our concrete human intellects. What the world calls "love" is NOT what love really is, he repeatedly points out in the Course. What the world calls "love" is fear disguised as love. It is, in fact, the imaginary opposite the Ego Mind devised to block our memories of Perfect Love.

Or, as Jesus explains:
 

No law the world obeys can help you grasp love’s 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 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.

Satan's wolf-in-sheep's-clothing version of "love" is what Jesus refers to in the Course as "special love." This deceptive replacement for God's Perfect Love includes self-love, familial-love, and romantic-love, all of which promote exclusivity, separation, and ego/body-self identification, rather than inclusiveness, unity, and Christ/Soul-Self Identification.

In future posts, I'll say more about "special love," "special relationships," and "specialness" in general. For now, just know that "special love," being a form of fear, prevents Perfect Love from entering our dreaming minds. To open our hearts to God's Presence again, we must give up our desire for and/or attachment to "special love" in all its deceptive guises. The level of ego/body-self surrender (not sacrifice!) this entails is difficult for most people to imagine, let alone achieve. But achieve it we MUST if we wish to liberate our Souls from Satan's silky cocoon.  

Because these two conceptions of "love" are, in fact, opposed, let's set the genuine article apart by calling it not "love" or Perfect Love, but Agape -- the Greek word for Divine Love. Understanding what Agape is and how superior it is to the Great Deceiver's pathetic substitutions is vitally important, so let me walk you through the differences.

Let's start with Agape's etymological origins. As a noun, the word first appeared in the mid-3rd Century BCE in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Agape’s use a a verb dates back as far as Homer, the presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Homer’s time (8^th Century BCE), however, Agape was understood to be synonymous with affection.

In the New Testament's First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, Agape is more accurately described as arising “out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” Elsewhere in the original Greek New Testament, Agape also referred to the “covenant of love” existing between God and Creation. That “covenant” is reciprocal, all-encompassing, and all-inclusive. God loves the Souls comprising the Sonship, and those Souls love Him right back. Being part of the God Mind, those Souls also love their fellow God-Creations and their own (real) Creations as much as they love their Creator.

 

When Jesus uses the word “Love” in the Course -- and in English translations of the New Testament -- he often means Agape, which is, in fact, the word he originally used. Actually, he probably said Hooba, the Aramaic word for Divine Love. In case you don't know, Aramaic is the language Jesus spoke when he walked the earth in a body. As an educated Jewish rabbi who grew up in Egypt (where his family fled to avoid the Massacre of the Innocents), Jesus also would have spoken Hebrew, Coptic, Greek (the common language of trade and literacy in his day), and probably some Latin (the language of the Romans who ruled Judea). But, by all accounts, Jesus delivered his sermons in Aramaic, the spoken language of the common people of Nazareth, Galilee, and Jerusalem in those days.

 

Like Agape, Hooba describes an overflowing, unconditional love that seeks nothing in return. The Divine Idea we ARE and always will be in God's Mind, Hooba and Agape have nothing to do with ardent affection or passionate desire; rather, they describe a general feeling of goodwill, loving kindness, and/or charity toward our fellow creatures. What we think of as “Christmas Spirit” or "brotherly love" embodies the general idea. Inherent in the definition is devotion, loyalty, and service to God, other Souls (not other people's egos!), and the spiritual aspects of life.

As an aside, when I say "charity," I mean wishing only the best or highest good for others; NOT giving to the "less fortunate" at the level of form. To perceive anyone as "less fortunate" -- or "less" ANYTHING -- is to see them through the Ego Mind's truth-distorting Dark Veil of separation, scarcity, and comparison. The only REAL charity we can give anyone, Jesus says in the Course, is to open their mind to Spiritual Truth. He also says we can only help others in this way if 1) we are awake or "healed" ourselves, 2) if the person is receptive, and 3) if we are the "teacher" assigned to this "pupil" in the Atonement Plan.

How do we know if someone we meet is receptive and/or one of our pupils? Jesus will tell us when both parties are ready to begin their teaching-learning partnership. He will also tell us exactly how we are to help them. Because anything we attempt to do without his direction can prove detrimental to the curricular progress and/or well-being of both people, we should NOT attempt to help others on our own.

Okay, yes. What I'm saying SEEMS to go against everything the world defines as "charity" -- and that's the point. How the world defines "charity" is as big a trap as how the world defines "love." To give "charity" or "love" as God defines these "ideas," we must give them to all at the level of shared mind and thought, NOT at the level of separate bodies and material objects or money. What we give in this manner -- in meditation and prayer -- we will receive quid pro quo.

Rightly understood, these charitable exchanges of loving thought are the "miracles" the Course prepares us to perform. These reciprocal thought-transactions are, Jesus tells us, the only real way to heal anyone of separation-mindedness. And separation-mindedness, he also explains, is the root cause of EVERY problem we face in the world.

Before we can perform these mutual mind-healing "miracles," we have to 1) hear the Holy Sprit's "Voice" with our inner-ears and 2) view everyone with the perfect equanimity of Christ's Vision. We can NOT, in other words, perceive ANYONE as "more," "less," "different," or "separate" than we are by any comparative measure the Ego Mind contrived to blind us to our SAMENESS or ONENESS with everything God created.

Stated more simply: To help or heal anyone in the true sense of the word, we must perceive and love everyone as the God-created Souls they really are -- NOT as the insane ego-body "characters" they play in the dream-world.

I'll say more about miracles, how they work, and how we do them in future posts. For now, let's get back to our definition of Perfect Love or Agape. Jesus affirms some of what I've already explained in the following excerpt from the Course's original dictations:

Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergences 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. 

Elsewhere, he just as affirmingly says:

Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit IS its meaning. It is COMPLETELY impartial in its giving, encompassing ONLY to preserve and KEEP COMPLETE what it would give. In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on Love to enter? Look at the desert, dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless, that makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that Love would bring to it, from where IT comes, and where it would return WITH you. 

In Workbook Lesson 127 (There is no love but God’s), Jesus also tells us: 

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 is 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, and so are you unlimited as well.

In the Workbook for Students, the word “Love” appears in the title affirmations of sixteen lessons:

Lesson 46: God is the Love in which I forgive.

Lesson 50: I am sustained by the Love of God.

Lesson 67: Love created me like Itself.

Lesson 68: Love holds no grievances.

Lesson 127: There is no love but God’s.

Lesson 189: I feel the Love of God within me now.

Lesson 195: Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

Lesson 229: Love, Which created me, is what I am.

Lesson 246: To love my Father is to love His Son.

Lesson 264: I am surrounded by the Love of God.

Lesson 274: Today belongs to Love. Let me not fear.

Lesson 293: All fear is past, and only love is here.

Lesson 298: I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.

Lesson 310: In fearlessness and love I spend today.

Lesson 344: Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.

Lesson 350: Miracles mirror God’s Eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, and through His memory to save the world.

Lesson 352: Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the Other comes the peace of God Himself.

 

Notice that when used as a noun, the word "Love" is usually capitalized. Only when used as a verb is "love" lower-case. Christ's treatment of the word as a proper noun supports my assertion that he means Agape in these lessons, rather than the changeable emotion the Ego Mind defines as "love."  If you're still in doubt, read Workbook Lesson 127: There is no Love but God's.

Because there is no English equivalent for Agape or Hooba, Jesus substituted “Perfect Love,” “Eternal Love,” "Divine Love," or just plain “Love” for the same idea when he dictated the Course. Whichever word Jesus may use, he makes his meaning abundantly clear by reminding us -- in the Bible AND the Course -- that God's two GREATEST commandments, rules, or laws are these:

1)   Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your Soul, and with all your mind; and

2)  Love your neighbor as yourself (because your neighbor IS part of your Christ-Self and also, at the Soul level, God’s Holy Creation).

These two directives underpin the Law of Love so often mentioned in the Course. Jesus spells out what that Holy Law decrees in Workbook Lesson 344 (Today I learn the Law of Love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me). In the text of this lesson, he says the following:

This is Your law, my Father, not my own. I have not understood what giving means, and thought to save what I desired for myself alone. And as I looked upon the treasure that I thought I had, I found an empty place where nothing ever was or is or will be. Who can share a dream? And what can an illusion offer me? Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts beyond the worth of anything on earth. Let my forgiven brothers fill my store with Heaven’s treasures, which alone are real. Thus is the Law of Love fulfilled. And thus Your Son arises and returns to You.

Elsewhere in the Course, Jesus drives home the point that giving and receiving are "one in Truth." Part of what he means is this: Anything we "give" to other people and/or the world in general (through the thought-system or mind we choose to interpret reality for us) we will receive in kind as manifested or ideated form. To receive the love we all crave so much, we must love God with all our hearts and minds by thinking ONLY kind and loving thoughts about everyone and everything.

Is this a tall order? Hell, yes. Is it possible to achieve? Yes, with time, practice, focused effort, and abundant willingness.

What Jesus also means (which took me until this week to figure out) is that, when we focus our attention on the Holy Spirit's "tone" in our minds, we are giving and receiving healing miracles simultaneously. That "tone" is the vibratory echo of the Creative Force of Grace ringing inside the Higher Mind channel through which God communicates with His dreaming Souls. This "tone" is what Jesus calls the Voice for God, the Song of Heaven, the ever-present echo, the Holy Spirit, and the Atonement, among other similar phrases.

This same tone is what Hindus, Yogis, and Buddhists (among others) call the Om or Aum vibration.

Being the Holy Spirit, this "tone," "echo," or "song" is the BRIDGE back to Eternity, Heaven, or Sanity. As that Bridge, this "tone," "echo," or "song" transports us from the lower levels of consciousness through the higher three levels of restored sanity, before God lifts us out of the dream altogether.

At various points in the Course, Jesus says it's the job of God's Teachers to 1) teach those who can't hear the Holy Spirit's Voice, 2) get their assigned pupils to the Bridge, and 3) teach themselves out of a job.

To that -- and to you -- let me say this: At least half of the Course's Text and Workbook are devoted to getting us to the Bridge, while the other half discusses what to do to go "the rest of the way." And yet, nothing I've read about the Course -- by Marianne Williamson, Ken Wapnick, Jerald Jampolsky, Gary Renard, Beverly Hutchinson Neff, or any other self-styled ACIM teacher -- says ONE WORD about any of this. These so-called teachers also do little more than pay lip service to the foundational tenet that the world is an ILLUSION we must GIVE UP to master the at-one-ment curriculum.

Well ... I'm sure there's a good reason for all of this in God's Great Plan, so I won't judge or condemn any of these well-meaning brothers in Christ. What I will say is this: I'm going to tell you how to get to the Bridge. You might not like what you hear -- or be willing to meet the requirements -- but I'm going to tell you anyway ... because that's the job Jesus gave me.

I can't, however, tell you everything you need to know today. What I can share at present is that our concrete human intellects can't comprehend how we can save ourselves and the world just by listening to this ringing sound in the silence of deep and focused meditation. Our Souls do, however, understand and also greatly benefit from the time devoted to concentrating on this healing tone. Like an internal tuning-fork, this tone reminds us of the Higher Truth we forgot, and also enables us to fulfill our assigned forgiveness and teaching functions.

This is essentially what Jesus means when he says, in Workbook Lesson 169 (By grace I live. By grace I am released), "As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God."

Elsewhere in the Course, when Jesus says, "We need do nothing" (except sit and wait for the Holy Spirit to come), this is also what he's talking about. We must, however, prepare ourselves to hear the Holy Spirit's Voice -- and that's where a good human teacher comes in handy. At the risk of overstating the obvious, a good teacher will 1) hear the Holy Spirit's Voice themselves and 2) want to teach their students how to hear it, too -- so they'll no longer need a human teacher. 

I heard the inner-ringing as a child, but forgot all about it until I started hearing it again two or three years ago -- while doing Self-Realization Fellowship's nine-month correspondence course. SRF wasn't my path, but Paramahansa Yogananda knew of what he spoke -- for the most part, anyway. What he got wrong, I'll strive to get right as we roll along.

Let's get back to the Law of Love, which Jesus describes in Workbook Lesson 344. The first thing he says is that the Law of Love is God's, not ours. He then says that, when in league with the Ego Mind, we try to acquire the worldly "treasures" we desire on our own, rather than in the giving-receiving partnerships mandated by the Law of Love. We strive, in other words, to appease our avarice for Satan's temptations (i.e., money, possessions, worldly power, sexual lust and gratification, "special love," etc.) through taking, buying, or self-interested willing, rather than by GIVING the THINGS OF GOD -- all of which are mental -- to our fellow Souls or brothers in Christ. Since Satan's "treasures" are only worthless vapor, all we gain in this unholy bargain is a longer sentence in hell.

The Law of Love is also known as the Law of Giving and Receiving and the Law of Karma. Karma is NOT, as commonly misperceived, a product of the Law of Cause and Effect. Why? Because, as I've explained, there is no CAUSAL MIND in the dream-world. We excluded God and the Creative Force of Agape, remember? It is the Law of Love -- not the Law of Cause and Effect -- that makes it SEEM as if we can generate real effects in the dream-desert. What we actually "manifest" are the "thought-gifts" we give over time to ourselves and others.

The good news is that we can expunge these unreal effects through the practice of True Forgiveness. True Forgiveness is, in fact, the ONLY way to clear the Karmic Record, short of having everything done to us we've done to others since the dream began. As Hindus and Buddhists have understood for centuries, that Karmic Record binds our Souls to the Wheel of Rebirth. 

That Wheel is depicted on the Wheel of Fortune card in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Take a moment to study the symbols in the image above, because every little "doodle" tells us something about how the Dream of Separation works. The four yellow figures, for example, are what I like to call the Holy Spirit's Rays of Atonement. In the Bible, these same Holy Powers are known as the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's only the Ego Mind's fearful interpretation of these HELPFUL powers that makes them seem menacing.

The books the winged creatures are reading are the Karmic Ledgers each helps us clear through their prescribed lessons in True Forgiveness. The jackal is the Great Deceiver, whose thought-system binds us to the wheel, and the snake represents the Creative Force of Divine Will uncoiling over many dream-lifetimes. Hindus and Yogis call that serpentine force of God's Will "kundalini."

In the Course's original dictations, Jesus mentions the Record, karmic debts, and reincarnation several times. Unfortunately, these informative references were cut from the Foundation for Inner Peace's "Standard Edition" prior to publication by a presumptuous editor. Other advanced teachings were also altered or removed, as I'll explain in future posts. For now, just know that anyone seeking enlightenment, at-one-ment, or Soul-purification through the Course should study the URText, rather than the "Standard" or "Original" editions. Why? Because (among other reasons) the URText is the ONLY version still containing Christ's critical teachings about sex and sexual desire.

Why do Christ's teachings about sex matter? Because, as Yogis and Buddhists have understood for centuries, we can't hear the Aum vibration as long as we seek to "join" with others at the level of the body.

And on that piquant note, let's close today's post before it gets even longer. In the next, I'll describe in more detail how God creates and why we can't create anything real in the Dream of Separation.