LESSON 264
September 21
"I am surrounded by the Love of God."
PRACTICE SUMMARY
(See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II Introduction)
COMMENTARY
The bulk of today's lesson is a beautiful prayer, and my suggestion to us all is that we take the time not only to read it, but to read it aloud, with all the expression of which we are capable. Jesus says, "My brothers, join with me in this today. This is salvation's prayer" (2:1-2). Will you do that? Perhaps we might pause at noon, each in our time zone, and as we do, realize that others are joining us in that very moment to pray this same prayer, together. And Jesus joins with us all, every time we repeat it. "Let all the world be blessed with peace through us" (W-pII.360).
(If you can't pause at noon, pause on another hour. Someone, somewhere, will be joining with you.)
Imagine the effect on yourself if, at least once an hour, and more often if possible, you simply pause for a moment and silently repeat to yourself, with conviction, "I am surrounded by the Love of God."
"Love is your safety," says the introductory lesson on "What is the body." The purpose of these ten lessons is to focus our attention on love, which is "invisible," rather than on the body which is visible. My text reading today goes right along. "When you made visible what is not true, what is true became invisible to you. ...It is invisible to you because you are looking at something else" (T-12.VIII.3:1, 3).
What is not seen is not therefore gone. Love is still in my mind because God placed it there. Love is still in everything, all around me, and I will see it if I will but stop looking at something else. Jesus says that if we look at love enough, what is not there will become invisible to us. That process is the shift the Course is talking about. As we learn to stop wanting to see something other than love, we will stop seeing anything but love. That outcome is inevitable because love is all there is.
We want to see separation, we want to see bodies, because we think somehow that keeps us safe. It preserves our individuality. Our real safety, however, lies in love. Our real safety lies in realizing that we are part of that ocean of love, never ending. Body, ego, and individual consciousness are not what need to be preserved and adhered to. Rather, we need to adhere to Universal Consciousness, to playing our part as a synapse in that Universal Mind, with no purpose that ends in this little cell of self, but only a purpose that serves the Whole.
The way to experience love is to give it. "For if love is sharing, how can you find it except through itself?" (T-12.VIII.1:5) Let me today open my heart to love the world. Let me know that this is my function. As I open to let love out, love will flood in. It always flows both ways. And what I am loving is myself, not a separate thing or things. I am not simply a cell; I only exist in relationship to the universe. The Whole is in every part. Everything is related to everything else, and only the Whole has meaning. I am surrounded by the Love of God.
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Arizona, USA.
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